Blog Disputes George Will's 'Labor is a Commodity' Claim

Posted Friday, January 5, 2007 12:00 am

By: E&P Staff The Daily Kos blog disputed George Will's assertion, made in a column calling for elimination of the minimum wage, that "labor is a commodity."

Will, of the Washington Post Writers Group, wrote yesterday that "the minimum wage should be the same everywhere: $0. Labor is a commodity; governments make messes when they decree commodities' prices."

The Daily Kos responded today: "Really, George? Where the heck did you get that one? Certainly not from your freshman econ course because as it turns out, in the United States labor is manifestly not a commodity according to federal antitrust law since 1914."

U.S. Code Title 15, Chapter 1, Section 17 (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode15/usc_sec_15_00000017----000-.html) states: "The labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce."

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Blog Disputes George Will's 'Labor is a Commodity' Claim

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