Are rich people more important than poor people?

You should know it is blatently not true. The wage people get paid does not depend on the 'worth' of their work. If that was really true we all know that nurses, teachers or farm workers will get paid much more than footballers, musicians or lawyers. Many factors contribute but it is mostly to do with supply and demand.

The criticism of labour theory revolves around the alleged undue stress Marx put on labour, ignoring other sources of value such as expertise and technology etc. This doesn't mean the theory is "completely incorrect", it merely means that it has exaggerated the importance of labour. It is plainly evident that extraction of value does take place to at least an extent (in some parts of the world more than others). For example, many high street brands (Nike is an infamous example) employ workers abroad in "sweat shops", where workers are paid pennies to make hundreds of pairs of shoes a day (which retail from £30-£150 in the UK and US markets).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/apr/28/sweatshops-supplying-high-street-brands

If that's not extraction of labour value, what is it?

Oh I see, so toilet cleaners are only poorly paid because they're working class are they? The lower middle class toilet cleaner replacements would be paid a "very high" wage merely by virtue of middle class huh? In fact they'd just become the new working class.

The value of a specific skill or trade depends on supply and demand and thus fluctuates. In a world full of lawyers and only very few builders, the builder demands a premium wage.

Say there were no toliet cleaners any more and loads of doctors. If the doctors are qualified so they are not going to voluntarily become toliet cleaners on a low wage when they can just be a doctor on a high wage. Since toliet cleaners are scarce their wage will rise. There are now half the number of people to treat so the wages of doctors will fall. If you want doctors to clean toliets it will only happen when toliet cleaners wages rise enough and doctors wages fall enough.

That is right but it doesn't randomly, supply represents how much it costs people to do that job and demand represents how much employers gain from having that worker. The builder would demand a high wage because his building would be extremely valuable to the person or they wouldn't have had it built. When the builders wage is low it makes sense for people who don't value buildings that highly to have them built because they are cheap. The same is true for lawyers.

Labour theory of value is not completely untrue, most economists recognize that aspects of it are valid. Yes, some aspects of the production of value were ignored but this does not prove that there is no surplus extracted from labour. It is plain for all to see that those employed in sweatshops are not paid the full value of their labour.

Raising the labourers wages would not necessitate employing less people unless demand for the product fell.

Many companies have been relocating from developed countries to third world nations to take advantage of low wage labour. The fact that these companies were profitable before relocating demonstrates that they could significantly increase worker wages while still generating a healthy profit.

The demand depends totally on the worth of their work though so supply and demand reaches a wage that depends on their "worth" by which I mean the value of output they produce.

They're not more important at all. They just, unfortunately, have more power.

Let me begin by correcting your spelling of the word toliet toilet.

Your choice of Doctors as toilet cleaner replacements is arbitrary and unrealistic. A highly skilled professionals with 6 years worth of undergraduate training, expertise that's in high demand and a graduate employment rate of ~100% would obviously not replace toilet cleaners. Much more likely is that replacements would be semi-skilled white collar workers, such as administrators. Just as is the case now, those who found themselves unemployed and unable to find well paid work would take menial jobs out of desperation. Toilet cleaners will never be in high demand because it is not a skilled job, anybody can do it so there's never going to be a high demand for them. There will always be unemployed people willing to fill these kinds of vacancies.



This paragraph is semi-incoherent. Who doesn't "value buildings that highly"? From homes to public buildings, warehouses and retail parks, they are an essential part of civilization and the economy. What determines the wage of builders is supply outstripping demand i.e. an overabundance of qualified builders and recession/depression. In any case, I can't work out what your point is here. How does this paragraph in any way support your assertion that the poor are the least productive section of society?

What would your ideal alternative be?

The problem is it is so hard to define what something is really 'worth' or the value of something this depends on circumstances,times, location etc. If you find yourself bitten by a poisonous snake in a remote location where there is just a single medical doctor who charges £10million for his treatment and although you it is free in the NHS you would probably pay it if you have the means. If food, shelter etc are charged at extortionate price you will probably still pay for those if you cannot find them anywhere else. People used to spend tens of £000 on 'brick' mobile phone when they first appeared now nobody will carry one even if they paid them to!!!

I was just using doctors as an example, I could have choosen any job that pays more than cleaners and made exactly the same points. It just easier to see the point if you go to the extremes.

The part in bold shows you don't know enough economics to be arguing about this. It being a low skilled job affects supply. If you got rid of the poor then the supply of people willing to do these jobs would fall because the people left have better alternative uses of their time. Demand is low because people don't want toilet cleaners that much, there output isn't very valuable.

To the second part, people value buildings at differently some more highly than others. Saying the do not value them highly either means relative to other goods and relative to other people. If most people value a house at £1mil and someone else at £500mil then the second person doesn't value the house highly.

The point I was making is that you are right to say if there were very few builders they would get paid a lot but that is because their work would be worth more in that case, their output would be more valuable. The value of things move and at the moment their low wage reflects they are not productive and if it were reversed so lawyers were paid less then the situation would have changed so that lawyer are less productive.

That people have equal amounts of power and that certain rich people won't be able to control things just because they can pay another rich person to do things their way.

I'm not saying it will happen but surely it would be better that the running of our society didn't depend on who has the most money?

No, you couldn't. Doctors are one of a small number of exceptional professions that require several years of intensive training and are, as a result, always in demand. The same can categorically not be said about semi-skilled white collar administrators. It is people in jobs such as the later that could quite conceivably find themselves out of work and consequently consider menial jobs, not Doctors.

The words pot and kettle come to mind. Demand for toilet cleaners is not low, supply is high. It would remain high even if the poor disappeared because there are a high number of people capable of competently completing the work as it is low skilled. If the poor were to disappear many semi-skilled people would find themselves unemployed as a result, public sector workers for instance (welfare, social services, social housing etc). These people would still need to earn a living so they would take whatever work they could find. Hence supply would remain high and wages would remain low; a new poor would emerge to replace the old.

This is just inane drivel I'm afraid. Property prices may rise and fall (mainly inline with the state of the economy) but if a building is valued at £500 million at any given time, it's going to be valued at more or less the same by everybody. The notion of the same property simultaneously being independently valued at £1 million and 500 million is completely absurd.

Can you give some examples?

Poor people are the backbone of society and economy.

the thing is that some of the most vital jobs in society are also the least well paid ones. so no i dont think rich people are more important, and i'm surprised that so many people do really.