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Labour power (German: Arbeitskraft; French: force de travail) is the capacity to do work, a key concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of capitalist political economy. Marx distinguished between the capacity to do work, i.e. labour power, and the physical act of working, i.e. labour. [1]
"The labor problem" is the economics term widely used toward the turn of the 20th century with various applications. [1] It has been defined in many ways, such as "the problem of improving the conditions of employment of the wage-earning classes."
Labour economics, or labor economics, seeks to understand the functioning and dynamics of the markets for wage labour. Labour is a commodity that is supplied by labourers , usually in exchange for a wage paid by demanding firms.
In the USA for example, one can calculate from labour force data that facilitating exchange processes and processing financial claims alone is the main activity of more than 20 million workers. Legal staff, police, security personnel and military employees number almost 5 million workers.
From a Marxist perspective, a labour supply is a core requirement in a capitalist society.To avoid labour shortage and ensure a labour supply, a large portion of the population must not possess sources of self-provisioning, which would let them be independent—and they must instead, to survive, be compelled to sell their labour for a subsistence wage.
Economic history shows a great variety of ways, in which labour is traded and exchanged. The differences show up in the form of: Employment status – a worker could be employed full-time, part-time, or on a casual basis. They could be employed for example temporarily for a specific project only, or on a permanent basis.
The lump of labor fallacy is also known as the lump of jobs fallacy, fallacy of labour scarcity, fixed pie fallacy, and the zero-sum fallacy—due to its ties to zero-sum games. The term "fixed pie fallacy" is also used more generally to refer to the idea that there is a fixed amount of wealth in the world. [ 4 ]
The insider-outsider theory is a theory of labor economics that explains how firm behavior, national welfare, and wage negotiations are affected by a group in a more privileged position. [1] The theory was developed by Assar Lindbeck and Dennis Snower in a series of publications beginning in 1984. [1] [2] [3] Wages set by insiders [4]