Labour Economics Quotes

The payment of the worker is not determined by the value of his product.

The proposition of Mr. Ricardo, which states that a rise in the price of labour lowers the price of a large class of commodities, has undoubtedly a very paradoxical air; but it is, nevertheless, true, and the appearance of paradox would vanish, if it were stated more naturally and correctly.

Money could not be converted into capital if wage labour did not exist.

It is preferable to regard labour, including, of course, the personal services of the entrepreneur, and his assistants, as the sole factor of production, operating in a given environment of technique, natural resources, capital equipment and effective demand. This is why we have been able to take labour as the sole physical unit which we require in our economic system, apart from units of money and of time.

Labour, like all other things which are purchased and sold... has its natural and its market price.

The capitalists speculate on the two following factors: the female worker must be paid as poorly as possible and the competition of female labour must be employed to lower the wages of male workers as much as possible.

I've never believed in lower wages. Never. Never believed in lower wages, I've never believed in lower wages as an economic instrument.

The liberal reward of labour, therefore, as it is the affect of increasing wealth, so it is the cause of increasing population. To complain of it, is to lament over the necessary effect and cause of the greatest public prosperity.

What workers must learn is that the only reason why wage rates are higher in the United States is that the per head quota of capital invested is higher.

The circulation of capital realizes value , while living labour creates value .

The unpopularity of raising corporate or personal income tax has been a straight jacket constraining Labour's thinking on how best to invest and grow the economy.

Where are we to look for the consumption required but among the unproductive labourers of Adam Smith?.

Labour was the first price, the original purchase - money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased.

I have had the view that cutting wages is not the path to prosperity, and one of the great myths propagated about my attitude to industrial relations is that I believe in lower wages. I've never believed in lower wages. Never. Never believed in lower wages, I've never believed in lower wages as an economic instrument.

We never accept low wages as the driving force for employment or growth.

Think how modern economics presents work. Only labour that contributes to growth counts.

Since labour is motion, time is its natural measure.

The only solution to the contradictions of capitalism entails the abolition of wage labour.

I do not regard capital to be the enemy of labour.

Twentieth-century welfare state capitalism was historically unique in that national income was split between wages and profits, labour and capital.

All wages are based primarily on productive power. Anything else would be charity.

I feel no doubt whatever that the parish laws of England have contributed to raise the price of provisions and to lower the real price of labour.

This relationship is the foundation for the argument, made by some trade unionists and labour advocates, that high wages can actually be "good for business". The precedent set by Henry Ford in 1914, who offered workers $5.00 per day (a very high wage at the time) so they could afford to buy the same cars they made, is often invoked.

LABOUR, like all other things which are purchased and sold, and which may be increased or diminished in quantity, has its natural and its market price. The natural price of labour is that price which is necessary to enable the labourers, on with another, to subsist and to perpetuate their race, without either increase or diminution.

My message is that the counterclaim - which is that if wages go up, employment will go down - is a scam. It's a con job. It's an intimidation tactic. There is absolutely no evidence anywhere that it's true. On the contrary, where you find high wages you usually find low unemployment.