RogueLeader said:
The market never completely sets labor prices. If it did there would be no profits. The market forces all sellers to sell their wares at its actual value. Profits come from the worker not being paid the value of his labor. Labor prices have to be controlled by the bourgeoisie because of that fact. That is why they talk about rights but do everything they can to stop labor unions from being formed, something that should be okay if the bourgeoisie followed their own philosophy.
It isn't necessarily true that sellers sell their wares at their actual value; in nearly any market where wares are sold, there is a healthy mark-up from the price paid by the seller for the item. Case in point: I work in the deli department at the local Tops; we sell a brand of cooked ham for $5.49/lb., while we bought the thing for somewhere around $1.07/lb. That's quite the mark-up. I make $7.00/hr. working at the deli, and believe me, I don't do anywhere near $7.00/hr. of work.
The notion that things are sold near their value is totally false; the sheer number of channels that the typical product must pass through today virtually ensures that it will retail for many times its actual value.
Unions aren't all they're cracked up to be, either. Sure, sometimes you can get something out of them, but we also have labor laws already in place. They were brought about by unions, but they're in place. Now, unions just collect dues and give you a nominal raise. I should know, since Tops is union.
That, of course, brings up an interesting point about unionized labor; in order to combat the hiring of scabs, labor unions managed to make it so that in a union workplace, all of the workers must be in the union, no questions asked. That is, if the company decides that it will take on union labor (and no, the employees don't have to want it), all of the employees must join the union. No, there's no room for abuse there.
The point is, the system is ****ed on both sides, because someone has to run it in either case.