Talk:Iron law of wages

Merger
It's been a month, so I'm merging the articles now. 72.66.123.16 05:44, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Remove tag
Now that you've marged the articles, should you not remove the tag suggesting the articles be merged? Gladmax 12:29, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Apparently the merger was done a while ago, but the proposer did not remove the tag, and since he/she used the wrong merger tag (the one here should have been mergefrom) it was hard to tell from the history exactly what transpired, but I think it's fixed at this point, and I removed the tag. --MCB 20:30, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Attribution to Ferdinand Lassalle
I see that it says that David Ricardo's "attribution is disputed," but I do not see that anywhere elsewhere. My instincts are to usually to trust Wikipedia, but my textbooks seem to imply that Ricardo alone proposed the theory, which would be a pretty significant difference from the text here, which implies that he merely added to Lassalle's work (and even different significantly from it). I can find seldom few Google hits about both Ferdinand Lassalle and the Iron Law of Wages outside of Wikipedia mirror sites, and those that do seem to mention that Lassalle based his work on "the Iron Law of Wages formulated by Ricardo" or something to that effect. Also, the wiki on Ferdinand Lassalle does not even mention "wages," much less this naming and popularization. If this is true (which it certainly could be, as I know little about this), there should be an explanation as to why there are so few other sites that make the connection. Any evidence should be cited and the nature of this "dispute" should be clarified, so that future readers find the content here consistent with writings elsewhere. 71.176.195.172 08:15, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

The concept embodied in the "Iron Law of Wages" was actually proposed by Richard Cantillon in "Essai sur la nature du commerce en general" III.xv (1755). His exact words were, "Men multiply like mice in a barn if they have unlimited means of subsistence." Lassalle's actual quote is this: "The limitations of the average wages of labor to the necessaries of life requisite among a people, according to custom, for the prolongation of the existence of the individual and for the perpetuation of the species—this is the iron and cruel law which controls the wages of labor under the relations of today." (Quoted in Lujo Brentano, Porter Sherman, The Relation of Labor to the Law of Today--1891) Unfortunately, Brentano does not say where he found this passage of Lassalle, but Karl Marx's Capital, vol. 1, attacks Lassalle for the ILoW repeatedly and also cites only two works in the bibliography: 'Herr Bastiat-Schulze von Delitzsch, der ökonomische Julian, oder: Capital und Arbeit' and another that is entirely unrelated. --James R MacLean (talk) 05:28, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Name of the article
The phrase "Iron Law of Wages" seems much more common than "subsistance theory of wages". Why was the latter name chosen for the article? Rick Norwood (talk) 16:24, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

recent edit and move
First, thank you for your excellent edit.

I also agree that the title of the article should be Iron Law of Wages. The only reason I reverted the move was the question of capitalization. This article, and the Britannica article on the same subject, and every other source I've read, use capital rather than lower case letters for the law. While Wikipedia does not routinely capitalize words in article titles, it does capitalize proper nouns, which the Iron Law of Wages apparently is, based on the sources.

Here, for example, Britannica: "English economist who gave systematized, classical form to the rising science of economics in the 19th century. His laissez-faire doctrines were typified in his Iron Law of Wages, which stated that all attempts to improve the real income of workers were futile and that wages perforce remained near the subsistence level."

Do you have any objection to making the move to "Iron Law of Wages" instead of "Iron law of wages"? Rick Norwood (talk) 13:58, 25 November 2009 (UTC)


 * other comment: it should be capitalized as Rick indicates as it is a proper noun: name of a particular person, place or thing. Hmains (talk) 01:05, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

212.56.97.238 's edit
Good edit, 212.56.97.238 Rick Norwood (talk) 15:07, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: moved. ErikHaugen (talk &#124; contribs) 06:48, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Iron Law of Wages → Iron law of wages –

Perplexed as to why this law is upcased, against sibling article titles, which are consistent with WP:CAPS ("Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization") and its specification that laws are usually downcased; and WP:TITLE, this is a generic, common term, not a propriety or commercial term, so the article title should be downcased. Lowercase will match the formatting of related article titles. Tony  (talk)  08:12, 14 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Some sources capitalize The Iron Law of Wages. The Britannica, cited above, is one example.  Other sources, John Kenneth Galbraith for example, do not. Rick Norwood (talk) 11:43, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Socialist Criticism
It isn't totally clear what's meant in the "modern political economy" part of the article. I can look into it more, but it has been awhile since I've read any Marx. It just isn't clear what is meant by "magnitude," etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zujine (talk • contribs)

Efficiency wages explanation incorrect
I believe the efficiency wages explanation is incorrect. As that article points out, the motivation for setting efficiency wages (i.e. wages above market clearing price) is to have a level of unemployment so as to discourage shirking, prevent worker turnover or select among potential employees. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arnob1 (talk • contribs) 00:29, 20 November 2013 (UTC)