labour-market
labour-marketIn a labour-market, human effort (or labour power) is made into a commodity, which is bought and sold under terms which in law are deemed to constitute a contract. The purchase and sale of formally free labour developed extensively with capitalism, but alternative paths to industrialization (such as real socialism) have entailed wage employment, though not strictly a free market for labour. Economists argue that, as with other factors of production, the market for labour can be understood as a special case of the general theory of prices, with the price (wages or salaries) being determined by supply and demand. However, research on actual labour-markets has shown that, in practice, many of the basic conditions assumed by price theory are usually absent. Mobility of workers between jobs is often sluggish or non-existent;...
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