[danielnaab]

I don't disagree with your wording... However, economics _is_ culture. If I pay my workers less than the cost of living I can justify it by the logic of the market, but it is still my choice. The "greed is good" mantra allows too many of us to rationalize away our economic choices as as different from our values. They're not, they're one and the same.

[jrells]

I think I understand where you're coming from, economics is a form of culture, but I was trying to distinguish the cold economic price of low-skilled labor from the non-economic value we place on it (sorry I don't know a better way to express this). Hard work is generally considered very important and valuable in our culture, but excess supply and low demand drives down the economic value. I value water very highly (non-economically), more than gold, but the economy disagrees.

You could say employers are greedy and hoard excess profits while keeping wages low, or you could say that they generously provide much needed jobs to a struggling low-skill labor market. Both are true. It would be nice if low-skilled labor drew higher wages, but wages above the economic rate are just another form of charity. You don't compromise your value of hard work by choosing to pay low wages, you just lack charity.

[danielnaab]

I understand the distinction. To clarify, I initially intended "properly value work" to refer to economic value, not moral value. The fact that employers benefit from low wage workers who are productive because they are healthy, partially thanks to food stamps and Medicaid, demonstrates they're not paying the real cost of that labor. However, I believe both ways of talking about "proper value" is correct (moral and economic).

In regards to your comment that "You don't compromise your value of hard work by choosing to pay low wages, you just lack charity." Perhaps to a business owner in a competitive market, paying more than prevailing rate would feel that way. But on a broad societal level, it's not charity to hold that everyone who works full-time should at least earn a lower middle class subsistence. If this were polled, broad majorities of progressives, conservatives, and libertarians would agree that work should be enough to raise one out of poverty. Nonetheless, we lack the political will to enact any kind of reform to realize that, because we worship "wealth creators" and the "invisible hand," and, for instance, raising the minimum wage is hence off the table.

If we really truly valued work in more than a symbolic manner, this wouldn't be the case; the libertarian right would be providing concrete policy proposals that would actually address the problem in a way they consider non-coercive. Instead, we hear post-facto justifications for our inequality, or even arguments that it's a good thing. Hence, I stand by the idea that we don't "value," as in moral value, work, no matter what we claim our values are.