If the wages are too low, employees will quit and move to higher paying jobs.
This cartoon ignores that markets are competitive and prices for the product gravitate towards their marginal cost.
Even in monopolized markets the labor is perfectly competitive so there's many substitutes for the labor. If machines are substituted for labor, then wages can go lower. This would happen in an unskilled labor market but not in the skilled labor market.
This cartoon shows the rich in a negative light. Many entrepreneurs earned their income by working long hours and taking risk. Often the entrepreneurs work with a high opportunity cost.
HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH.
ReplyDeleteYou think markets are competitive. HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH.
Please do take note of the following: most billionaires made their money in *uncompetitive markets*.
In an extreme case, some of them inherited their money (competing with... who? their siblings?).
A very large number operated in the CEO market, in which CEOs appoint boards and boards set the pay for CEOs -- and made their money without their *company* actually doing any better, by basically looting the company cash reserves. This is the LBO model as well, and the Bain Capital model.
You're talking about entrepeneurs. That ain't the 0.1%. The 0.1% contains very, very few entrepeneurs. Many of those have *deliberately* made their money in monopoly or oligopoly businesses. You should go down the list, starting with the Forbes 400. It might disillusion you of this bullshit you're peddling.
If you don't want to delve into the details of who are actually the 0.1% in this country, perhaps you should read one of the most important economics books ever written: Veblen's _Theory of the Leisure Class_.