The Iron Law of Wages is a proposed law of economics that asserts that real wages always tend, in the long run, toward the minimum wage necessary to sustain the life of the worker. The theory was first named by Ferdinand Lassalle in the mid-nineteenth century. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels attribute the doctrine to Lassalle (notably in Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875), Marx), crediting the idea to Thomas Malthus in his work, An Essay on the Principle of Population, and the terminology to Goethe's "great, eternal iron laws" in Das Göttliche.
Famous quotes containing the words iron, law and/or wages:
“However, there is a locked room up there
with an iron door that cant be opened.
It has all your bad dreams in it.
It is hell.”
—Anne Sexton (19281974)
“The times have changed. Why do you make a fuss
For privilege when theres no law of form?”
—Allen Tate (18991979)
“I thought a minute, and says to myself, hold on,spose youd a done right and give Jim up; would you felt better than what you do now? No, says I, Id feel badId feel just the same way I do now. Well, then, says I, whats the use you learning to do right, when its troublesome to do right and aint no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same?”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910)