[T]here is no longer a free market in jobs and wage rates. There are now laws on the statute books that grant certain groups of workers the privilege of demanding and getting higher wages than they could and would earn in a free market. The unemployed are no longer permitted to compete and thus reduce the higher than free market wage rates of the privileged few. So those shut out from the higher paying jobs must compete for work and drive down the wage rates in unorganized occupations. Then, they face the floor decreed by minimum wage laws which often prevent employment at these reduced market wage rates.
Employers cannot long pay workers the legal minimum wage rate if consumers cannot or will not buy the resulting goods and services at prices that cover costs. As a result, rail-lions are now legally prevented from taking either high paying jobs or lowpaying jobs. The free market in jobs and wage rates has been legally destroyed.
It should thus be evident that the remedy for mass unemployment is to repeal the laws which prevent people from competing for the higher paying jobs or taking the lower paying jobslower paying, until workers acquire the skill and experience needed to climb the ladder to higher incomes.
— Percy L. Greaves, On Labor Unions [December 1983]
- Percy L. Greaves(1906-1984)
Bellevue University - Foreword to Understanding the Dollar Crisis
Ludwig von Mises Institute - On Current Monetary Problems – Greaves Interviews Mises
by Percy L. Greaves
Ludwig von Mises Institute - On Labor Unions
by Percy L. Greaves
Foundation for Economic Education - Mises Made Easier
by Percy L. Greaves
Ludwig von Mises Institute