if anything, the amount of 'money' you earn is the 'value' of your labor to the free market. it does not represent any sort of moral code (the amount of good done, or even the amount of 'work' done). Fallacies occur when you separate the 'currency' part of 'money' from its underlying 'commodity' value. If you take any example back down to a barter level, one can easily see that 'money' in and of itself is purely a representation of labor, with the 'value' of that labor termed in the quantity of money.
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Originally Posted by So, I think most people would agree with me that dishonesty with money is a bad thing. But, what constitutes dishonesty with money? Well, theft and extortion, obviously. But, if we consider money to be a representation of how much more you've given to others than what you've received, a lot of other things fall under dishonesty as well. Paying your employees less than they deserve for the amount of work they give is dishonest. Now, a blanket minimum wage doesn't solve this problem - not all work is worth the same amount, and not all workers work as hard, so there's no reason that everyone should be guaranteed a certain amount when they may not work hard enough to deserve it. So, in addition, demanding more than you're worth is dishonest <hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>
not so.
Paying your workers less then they AGREE to is dishonest - paying them exactly what they agree to is completely honest - no matter what an outside person thinks of the quantity of money involved. The amount of money to be paid for a service can only be determined by the participants of the transaction, and only then at the time of the transaction - not 2 months later or 5 months before. time influences not only the value of money but also time changes situations which may affect one's valuation of money to a great degree.
'demanding' more than you are worth is NOT dishonest since you cannot know exactly what you are worth until you have other participants agreeing with you. You are free to 'demand' that you are worth $100/hour but reality is that if you can only find someone to pay you $20/hour for your labor then THAT is what you are worth. The use of the word 'demand' here is quoted because its use makes it sound like the person is 'forcing' another to pay this 'demanded' amount - this is not legal, it is referred to as coercion or force. it would be more 'honest' to say that a person 'values' his labor at a certain amount, not 'demand', for he cannot force another to ceed to his demands without making the transaction illegal/immoral.