[akarma]

> Jeff Bezos wants to pay the least for the most amount of work, and the workers want the most money for the least amount of work. It sounds like both parties should meet themselves half-way as opposed to living in what is effectively modern-day slavery.

The way it currently works is what you describe here. Amazon pays the least they can for the most amount of work, and workers work the least they can for the most amount of pay. They meet at the equilibrium where Amazon receives adequate labor, and the workers receive adequate pay.

There's nothing radical or communistic about that idea.

[whakim]

Where "the equilibrium" ends up changes over time though. Over the past 40-50 years in most developed countries, capital's (i.e. businesses') share of gross national income has been rising and labor's has been falling. This means that on average "the middle" has been trending towards companies paying less for the same amount of labor.

[akarma]

This is true, and it wouldn't suggest anything is amiss.

In the US for example, there's a lot of factors in increasing labor supply: (1) From 1955 to today, women have gone from 36% labor force participation to 59%. (2) The percent of immigrants in the US in the 1950s to 1970s was less than 50% of what it is today.

When the labor supply grows, it'll push downward on wages as the equilibrium price shifts.

America's a country designed to be optimized for freedom, which includes women having the ability to participate in equal numbers to men in the workforce if desired, and immigrants having the ability to come and build their lives here if desired. That will lower wages, which is just one part of the picture in terms of economics and policy.

[whakim]

This isn't actually true because the growth of Gross National Income is proportional to the size of the working population. I'm also not talking about wages in absolute terms, I'm talking about the wage share (the percentage of GNI which goes to wages, as opposed to capital). Definitionally, the wage share has been declining since the 1970s because rates of growth have been slowing, which increases the capital/income ratio and (assuming return rates on capital remain relatively constant) will increase the capital share of income (and thus decrease the wage share). I'm not necessarily claiming to know what the correct value should be for the wage share, only that it's significantly lower than it used to be (and will probably continue to decline for the forseeable future). That being said, the wage share is obviously closely tied to inequality; if you reduced returns on capital and/or increased growth, you'd likely also increase the wage share.