i pay my employees minimum wage.
[{"role": "system", "content": "Exploitation of labour is the act of treating ones workers unfairly for ones own benefit. It is a social relationship based on a fundamental asymmetry in a power relationship between workers and their employers. When speaking about exploitation there is a direct affiliation with consumption in social theory. Traditionally, this would label exploitation as unfairly taking advantage of another person because of his or her inferior position, giving the exploiter the power. Karl Marx, who is considered the most classical and influential theorist of exploitation, did not share the same traditional account of exploitation. Marx's theory explicitly rejects the moral framing characteristic of the notion of exploitation, and restricts the concept to the field of labour relations. In analyzing exploitation, many political economists are often stuck between the explanation of the exploitation of labour given by Marx and Adam Smith. Marx's exploitation theory is one of the major elements analyzed in Marxian economics, and some social theorists consider it to be a cornerstone in Marxist thought. Marx credited the Scottish Enlightenment writers for originally propounding a materialist interpretation of history.\n"}, {"role": "user", "content": "I don't understand employers who try to get out of paying their employees minimum wage -- or even better, a *living* wage."}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Due to the flexible nature of the term \"living\" there is not an accepted measure of what a living wage is - so it does vary by location and household type."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Absolutely -- however at best, employers take that into account depending on their location."}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "The labor laws in the UK are pretty amazing - right to leave for child care, flexible working hours, 28 paid holidays and a minimum wage."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Ummmmm.....jealous! Not always the case in the US unfortunately. You've listed a wish list for many Americans, right there."}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Exactly - the US has a minimum wage that is ridiculous and discourages working more than 40 hours - that is nothing."}, {"role": "user", "content": "You mean working for 40 hours at that wage is nothing? You're right! Especially if benefits are limited."}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "The US Labor law's aim is to remedy the unequal power between employees and employers, but it really doesn't do much of anything to guarantee the minimum wage or even the hours worked."}, {"role": "user", "content": "That's why I *so* admire those companies and organizations that take it upon themselves to do the right thing. The ones that remember it's *humans* they employ."}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Those employers do not think about the employee at all - they just treat them unfairly for their own benefit."}]