One of the supposed greatness of capitalism is the free market. Market forces alone will provide everything that anyone ever needs, or wants. By virtue of supply and demand commodities and services will be doled out by the profit motive. The price of a commodity or service is dependent upon the supply of it, and the willingness of consumers to purchase it. If you can’t afford something, then the market has deemed you unworthy of it.
The same thing applies to labour. There’s a reason why they call it a labour market. There’s a supply of labour and a willingness of capitalists to pay for that labour. If you have too few labourers, the price increases. If you have too many, the price decreases. This is the “law” of supply and demand.
However much the capitalist claims that the law is true freedom and the only way for an economy to function, they always seem fit to cheat it. Case in point, the United Kingdom. Due to Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a shortage of labour. By the logic of the market, this would raise wages to attract workers.
That’s not what the capitalist wants. They want cheap labour to maximize profits.
According to a BBC report:
‘The Association of Independent Meat Suppliers told the BBC the industry had about 14,000 job vacancies currently.
‘It said Covid, Brexit and perceptions over career paths had caused a looming "recruitment crisis".’
Meaning, there aren't enough people to fill the open positions in the meat industry. In that case, by the law of supply and demand, the wages offered should increase to attract the necessary labour to meet production. But as you’re about to see, that’s not what the capitalist has in mind.
‘Meat industry leaders held talks with the government on Monday to discuss options of how businesses could link up with prisons to fill vacancies.
...
‘The industry body said businesses would seek to link up with prisons that contain prisoners who are part of the Release On Temporary Licence (ROTL) programme.
‘ROTL is a risk-assessed temporary release programme that inmates in open prisons use to gain work experience to help them in their transition back into the community.’
If you don’t want to pay the necessary wage (according to the market) to employ people, you can always try slavery. If you can’t make the job attractive, you can always just force people into it. Which is exactly what is happening right now. The UK, it seems, is marching down the same path that the United States is in terms of using forced prison labour.
Of course, this is all for the benefit of the incarcerated man. The capitalist system is known for its humanity and compassion. This is “free training” available to a convict so that he may support himself once he leaves prison. So that he can work in the meat sector that already is refusing to hire non-prison labour.
They are hypocrites. They tout the system when it benefits them, then make excuses or lies when it doesn’t work out in their favour. The capitalist doesn’t really believe in the free market, it believes in the profit motive no matter the moral or social consequence.
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58303679