Wages

On a free market*, the wage level will always be what the market decides. No union in the world can raise wages above the market level, and no employer in the world can pay less than it. The reason for this is that an employer that pays less, will not get employees enough, and an employer who pays more, will run out of business.

Wages cause heated discussions, and the reason for this is that most people are either wage-earners (like me) or wage-payers (like my employer). Wages are crucial to both wage-earners, who live by them, and wage-payers, who obviously pays them.

Most people fail, or refuse, to understand that the price of labor is just like the price of any other good or service bought and sold on the market, at least in a strictly economical point of view. Wages do not pop out of the sky** but depend on the price of the goods or services produced, and that price can only be set either voluntarily, by the market, or through force, by governmnent.

Do I need to remind my readers that the wages in the private, or semi-private, sector in general are higher than the wages in the public sector, in every country that I know of?

*Which is not what any country has today, although some countries, e.g. Singapore, get pretty close.
**Although many seem to believe that.