Tom Woods is giving out a new free ebook called Sane Space. Free if you subscribe to his mailing list, that is.
It’s really easy to read. Here’s a nice excerpt (p. 5):
Employers have a fixed amount of money to pay for labor services. They don’t care if that compensation comes in the form of cash, better working conditions, fringe benefits, or whatever.
What that means is that insisting prematurely on more comfortable working conditions doesn’t make people richer. It simply redistributes the fixed amount of compensation employers are willing to pay, away from take-home pay and toward improved working conditions.
Some people may prefer that compensation bundle, but who says everyone does?
As a matter of fact, if you ask people who work in sweatshops today if they’d rather have more pleasant conditions (or fewer working hours) with less take-home pay, they overwhelmingly say no.
Ben Powell of Texas Tech University actually bothered to ask. And 90+% of them said they wanted the money…