CDZ The purchase and sale of labor

[usmbguest5318]

Banks, car services, airlines, travel agencies, and individuals all sell the same thing: labor. Everyone and every entity that has money and wants a service performed purchases labor. The purchase and sale of labor, the labor market, is subject to exactly the same laws of supply and demand, along with the principles and concepts of profit (satisfaction) satisficing and/or maximization [1], elasticity [2], utility, information imperfection, etc. as are goods.

As a seller of labor, individuals must do exactly the same things firms do when selling their goods or services:

• Differentiate their labor (labor capacity, labor skills, etc.) from that offered by other sellers.
• Price one's labor at a competitive rate.
• Most importantly, identify buyers for one's "total product" (henceforth herein called "product") [3] this is, buyers of labor:
  • to whom one wants to deliver one's labor after the buyer has agreed to purchase it,
  • who seek neither more nor less labor than one has to offer,
  • who are willing and able to pay the price one demands for one's labor, and
• Offer one's labor to the buyers one has identified.

Failing to do any of those things may result in one's either not making the sale or making an unsuitable sale.

For much of the 21st century, American sellers of labor have kvetched ad nauseum about having to compete with workers from other nations, but those same individuals are mostly mum regarding the fit of their labor with what buyers of labor demand. For much of that time, American buyers of labor have stated that they find it difficult to find enough American sellers of labor who offer the labor product they want to buy; thus they purchase labor from individuals who offer the product they want to buy. The disconnect between the product American sellers of labor offer and the product American buyers of labor want to buy forms the nexus of what has become the immigration debate.

When thinking about the circumstance of buyers and sellers of labor, the following questions come to mind:

1. Whose burden is it to develop and offer labor products that conforms to one (or more) buyer's demands?
   • The seller's?
   • The buyer's?
   • Someone else's?
2. Does it cost more to be a buyer or seller of labor?
   • The answer to this question alludes to the key difference between being a seller of labor and a seller of goods. For many sellers of labor, the cost of selling it is, compared to that for buyers, negligible, whereas for buyers of labor, the costs are high. The cost exigencies are exactly the opposite for buyers and sellers of goods.
3. By what rationale should a labor buyer be forced to purchase a product that isn't the one they want to buy?
   • If a buyer is forced to purchase a product that lacks qualities they demand, the end for which they demanded the product is compromised in some way. Whose privilege is it to thus compromise a buyer's objectives?
   • If a buyer is forced to purchase a product that is delivered only in a place where they don't care to take delivery, the product is of no use to the buyer.
   • If the buyer is unwilling to pay the seller's demanded price, the buyer must find a seller of the product who will accept a sum the buyer is willing to pay.
4. In the face of competition from other labor sellers, what are any given labor seller's options that do not impose upon any others' (be they buyers or sellers) natural rights (right to exist, right of choice, and right to move about)?
   • Develop and offer a different product, be it qualitatively upgraded, qualitatively downgraded, differently priced or differently placed.
   • Offer the product one currently has to a buyers who demand it.
   • Exit the labor marketplace in one or a mix of ways:
     • Cease to sell labor (exit the labor market entirely).
     • Exit one's current geographic locus of the labor market and enter a different geographic locus of it.
     • Exit the labor market for "X" type of labor and enter the one for "Y" type of labor.
5. Which comes first, awareness of demand for a product or a product?
   • While there are exceptions, awareness of demand overwhelmingly precedes the product/product development (production) [4].

The American principle of freedom, when applied to economics, has two root dimensions: sellers must be free to offer whatever it be that suits them to offer and buyers must be free to purchase (demand) whatever they determine best fits their objectives. Despite that being so, the very same people who argue for increasingly fewer restrictions on one's freedom, people who argue for fewer regulations, incongruously and in complete rejection of their supposed belief in the principle of freedom, time and time again seek regulations, laws, etc. that, in one way or another, impose limits on labor buyers' freedom of choice about the labor product they buy.

Insofar as those individuals purport to ascribe to both stances, it becomes clear that they believe not in existential freedom, which is not something one acknowledges, accords and respects when it's convenient to do so and doesn't when it's not, but rather only in wielding freedom as rhetorical tool/weapon in furtherance of their ends. With great freedom comes great responsibility, part and parcel to which is (1) the duty to respect others' freedom even when one had rather not have to, and (2) the duty to bear the consequences of one's own freely made choices.

Considering the agglomeration of ideas, principles, concepts, etc. discussed above (and in the corresponding endnotes and linked content), it's my opinion that folks antipathy toward immigrants and advocacy for increased limits on immigration (frankly, legal or illegal) is nothing other than labor sellers crying over the "spilt milk" of their poor past choices.

Why? Because the demand for labor existed and Americans, by mere dint of being Americans, were given the first opportunity to position themselves to fill it. For example:

• Intellectual Labor:
  • Every American who entered high school during or after the late 1970s has been accorded, free of charge, the opportunity to develop highly demanded and well compensated IT labor skills that employers demand.
  • No American who wants to develop labor skills that require a college education is, on account of lacking financial wherewithal, is prevented from doing so. That's so at institutions of higher education from the country's most elite to the most non-elite.
  • No American who wants to develop labor skills that require a college education is, on account of apparently mediocre intellectual acuity or due to dearths of devotion, is prevented from doing so. There is some institution of higher learning into which anyone of slightly below average or higher intellect can gain admission whereat they can obtain labor attributes and boost their intellect. [5]
• Physical Labor
  • To the extent a labor buyer demands only that one be hale, labor sellers need only find buyers who are willing to pay one's price for the labor one sells.
  • No American who wants to develop labor skills that require physical training is, on account of a paucity of financial resources, mediocre intellectual acuity or due to dearths of devotion, is prevented from doing so. Just as there are colleges into which anyone who wants to go to college can gain admission, so it is with trade schools/programs. (Often enough community colleges offer trade certifications/degrees as well as academic degrees.)

In light of those realities, the only person to blame for a labor seller's not being able to sell their labor is the seller.



Notes:

1. Do not confuse revenue maximization with profit maximization ("satisfaction"/"utility" maximization is the buy-side analogue to the sell-side behaviors of profit/revenue maximization or satisficing). Every individual/entity when buying or selling labor must, as must any buyer/seller of goods, either satisfice or maximize when executing any given transaction; however, the totality of their transactions (i.e., all purchase and sale transactions in which one engages) indicate whether one is predominantly satisficer or predominantly a maximizer, or, on rare occasion, neither, which is the case when one's transactions are equally divided between the two behaviors.
   
   Because an individual/firm requires profit to remain a "going concern," economists assume businesses and individuals are predominantly profit maximizers, for one who perpetually is predominantly a satisficer will, when competitive/market factors shift against them, go broke. (Coverage of how precisely that happens is the stuff of marketing and business management, not economics, this is an economics thread.)
   • Maximizers and Satisficers: A Look into Consumer Regret and Dissatisfaction
2. See also:
   • Price Elasticity of Supply
     
   • Price Elasticity of Demand
3. What is a total product? A total product is a good or unit of labor having specific qualities/attributes and that a seller offers at a price buyers are willing and able to pay and that the seller makes available in a place where buyers are willing to take delivery of it. Buyers and sellers can haggle about various product elements, but at the end of the day, if they cannot agree, however begrudgingly, on all of them, no sale/purchase happens. This is so regardless of whether the product is tangible or intangible. Think about that in terms of your own purchasing behavior.
   • If the product a seller offers to you lacks attributes you demand and/or has too many attributes, you are far less likely to buy it, though under circumstances (terms) that you deem acceptable, you may reluctantly do so.
     • Who determines what attributes a purchased product must have? The buyer; you.
     • Who is in control of whether you buy or don't? The buyer, because the product attributes are fixed; they are what they are.
   • If the product is offered at a price you aren't willing to pay, you won't buy it. If it's offered at a price you aren't able to pay, you also won't buy it. Likewise, the seller won't sell it to you if you are unwilling or unable to pay the sum s/he demands for the product.
     • For this aspect of the exchange, control is shared equally between the buyer and seller.
   • If a product having the perfect mix of attributes is offered at a price one finds acceptable, but it's only available for delivery in location where you are unwilling or unable to take delivery, you won't buy it.
     • Who determines where be acceptable locations for product delivery? The buyer.
4. A key success factor for sellers is the ability to very aptly suss the nature of extant demand, that being what is truly demanded, how many people demand it, what be the price limits applicable to their filling the demand, etc.
   
   It may not seem that demand precedes product development, but it nearly always does. At the level of a specific product -- your labor, my labor, subway service, a phone, a car, etc. -- it seems as though nobody demanded the good/service until it was put on offer. After all, until there was an iPhone, nobody demanded an iPhone.
   
   The thing is that before there was explicit demand for an iPhone, there was demand for a "better mousetrap," so to speak. It so happens that among the sellers who had the ability and will to offer that "better mousetrap," Apple is the one one who most aptly built a "better mousetrap" and offered it to demanders of "better mousetraps."
   
   Don't confuse demand for a specific product that is offered by a specific seller with demand for a solution that can be purchased with money. Demand for an iPhone is the product equivalent of demanding "Tom's" labor, whereas demand for a communications solution that meets a set of requirements is the product equivalent of demanding labor. While both types of demand exist, general demand for a monetarily purchasable solution vastly outweighs/outnumbers specific demand because everyone demands solutions they can purchase, but not everyone demands an iPhone or "Tom's" labor. Why is there demand for iPhones and "Tom's" labor? Because both "Tom" and Apple did the things noted in the first set of bullet points found at the outset of this post.
5. See also: Intelligence New Findings and Theoretical Developments

 

[gallantwarrior]

A very nicely crafted piece. But, the seller of labor is the individual providing said commodity. Many individuals choose to deal through brokers in order to sell their labor.
I, for instance, sell my labor through a broker who provides my services to a variety of buyers of labor.

 

[Wyatt earp]

All this just for the OP not yet comprehend the difference between illegal Mexicans and legal Mexicans?

 

[usmbguest5318]

A very nicely crafted piece. But, the seller of labor is the individual providing said commodity. Many individuals choose to deal through brokers in order to sell their labor.
I, for instance, sell my labor through a broker who provides my services to a variety of buyers of labor.

1. Thank you.
2. Broker or no broker, the ultimate need and burden for selling the labor rests with you. If that, to you, means get a different broker, then it does. If instead it means you dispense with a broker's services and sell your labor yourself, then that's what it means.

 

[BradVesp]

All this just for the OP not yet comprehend the difference between illegal Mexicans and legal Mexicans?

It doesn't matter if the problem is that Americans don't do their own work.

 

[usmbguest5318]

It doesn't matter if the problem is that American's don't do their own work.

Economically speaking, neither that nor that the person selling the labor is or isn't an American are relevant factors. Those factors are ingermane because the laws of supply and demand function the same regardless of the nationality of a buyer or seller.

 

[BradVesp]

It doesn't matter if the problem is that American's don't do their own work.

Economically speaking, neither that nor that the person selling the labor is or isn't an American are relevant factors. Those factors are ingermane because the laws of supply and demand function the same regardless of the nationality of a buyer or seller.

Okay, I agree, but then why did you stress "American" so often in your post? It suggests the relevant factors are based on things like the norms, morals, and decisions in America.

If economics is a science then it's basically consistent (or ingermane) because the laws of supply and demand function the same regardless of the nationality of a buyer or seller, unless you're trying to make a point about a specific culture.

 

[danielpalos]

All this just for the OP not yet comprehend the difference between illegal Mexicans and legal Mexicans?

It is a social distinction not a capital distinction.

 

[usmbguest5318]

It doesn't matter if the problem is that American's don't do their own work.

Economically speaking, neither that nor that the person selling the labor is or isn't an American are relevant factors. Those factors are ingermane because the laws of supply and demand function the same regardless of the nationality of a buyer or seller.

Okay, I agree, but then why did you stress "American" so often in your post? It suggests the relevant factors are based on things like the norms, morals, and decisions in America.

If economics is a science then it's basically consistent (or ingermane) because the laws of supply and demand function the same regardless of the nationality of a buyer or seller, unless you're trying to make a point about a specific culture.

I agree, but then why did you stress "American" so often in your post?

Look at about what things I qualified my remarks by using the the adjective "American." For instance:

the demand for labor existed and Americans, by mere dint of being Americans, were given the first opportunity to position themselves to fill it.

Every American who entered high school during or after the late 1970s has been accorded, free of charge, the opportunity to develop highly demanded and well compensated IT labor skills that employers demand.

No American who wants to develop labor skills that require a college education is, on account of lacking financial wherewithal, is prevented from doing so. That's so at institutions of higher education from the country's most elite to the most non-elite.

No American who wants to develop labor skills that require a college education is, on account of apparently mediocre intellectual acuity or due to dearths of devotion, is prevented from doing so.

I know the the statements above are accurate with regard to Americans. I do not know whether they are true for citizens of other nations. I could have replaced "American"/"Americans" with "people"/"person," but I don't know enough about the limitations on one's ability to develop one's labor product in every nation to know whether the statements are true for all of them; thus I had to constrain the scope of those statements. The same rationale is why I qualified any other of my remarks by writing "American"/"Americans." Here are some more examples of that:

The American principle of freedom, when applied to economics,

I know for a fact Americans' conception of freedom is not universally espoused even though the principles of economics are. (While we don't much talk about the economics of command economies because the U.S. is not a command economy, the economics of command economies also are among the principles of economics. Some countries, the U.S. being one, chose not to implement those economic principles, and others have chosen to implement them. The principles themselves, however, are not, in a positivist context, in dispute.)

American buyers of labor have stated that they find it difficult to find enough American sellers of labor who offer the labor product they want to buy

I don't know that preponderantly, say, French, Italian, Nigerian, Bolivian, Dutch, Indonesian, Kuwaiti, Israeli, Japanese, Russian, etc. buyers of labor have stated the same thing.
​

 

[Disir]

What a completely logical way to justify H1B visas, outsourcing and offshoring. Who knew?

 

[danielpalos]

Simply excise the wage difference for price parity; and, let them outsource all they want.