Lootman wrote:And that is how things work. I offer you a wage which reflects the value of your labour to me. And you are free to accept or decline the offer.
Except you are not free to accept or decline the offer. That's the problem.
There isn't a "no-deal" condition that binds over time equally on both parties. Business needs only hire when there is a chance of a profit, whereas people need to be hired to eat.
The labour market is naturally a buyers market - a problem identified in the Beveridge report.
The labour market should always be a seller's market rather than a buyer's market ... The reason [of principle] is that difficulty in selling labour has consequences of a different order of harmfulness from those associated with difficulty in buying labour. A person who has difficulty in buying the labour that he wants suffers inconvenience or reduction of profits. A person who cannot sell his labour is in effect told that he is of no use. The first difficulty causes annoyance or loss. The other is a personal catastrophe.
§5, Full Employment in a Free Society, pp19