Following my post Letter from Nebraska, this time I offer a post containing a Letter to Nebraska - while the correspondence, sort of, stays in the family.
I think, George Reisman's argument about the causative precedence of profit over wages is very important, indeed.
Thus, the truth, Mr. Buffett, concerning the relationship between capitalists and wage earners is the exact opposite of what is claimed by the exploitation theory. Namely, capitalists do not deduct profits from wages, but are responsible for the positive existence of wages. As a cost of production, wages are a deduction from sales revenues, which in the absence of capitalists would be pure profit. Thus capitalists are responsible for increasing wages relative to profits and reducing profits relative to wages. At the same time, through increasing the production and supply of goods and thereby reducing prices, they increase the buying power of the wages they pay. This is not any exploitation of wage earners but their massive and progressive economic betterment.
The entire letter.
