… is from page 181 of the late UCLA economist William Allen’s superb 1989 collection of the transcripts of his radio addresses, The Midnight Economist; specifically, it’s from Allen’s April 1985 address “Employment and Wages, Competition and Fairness”:
The more valuable the worker, the higher the bid for his services. The high wage offer reflects rational concern of employers for their well-being, not a delicate sense of altruism or fairness. If you are technologically efficient in performing services which the community values highly, and if relatively few other workers are so productive, you will prosper. It is competition among the hateful employers that raises wages, for they must bid against each other for labor to supply demanded products and thereby earn rewards. And it is competition among lovable fellow workers that holds wages down by providing alternative to employers.
DBx: Yep. Economics reveals that if you are unhappy with your current wage, your ire should be aimed at other workers who are selling the same set of skills that you are selling. Your wages are kept as low as they are by these fellow workers. Also, of course, your fellow workers can and should include you among those who they blame for their low wages.
Likewise, economics also reveals that if you are unhappy with the high prices you pay, following a natural disaster, for tanks of propane and sheets of plywood, aim your anger at your fellow consumers who are responsible for bidding the prices of these items upward. Also, of course, your fellow consumers can and should include you among those who they blame for the high prices they pay.
