--- John Medaille <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Mill (following Hume) takes it as axiomatic > that man is averse to work. This is not a proper axiom, as we can observe many people enjoying pyschic income, and labor has value apart from the wage as providing the satisfaction of doing something useful and well done, and providing dignity, i.e. not being a charity case. So while work-aversion may be a useful premise for theory conditional on it, whether as a general proposition most who labor are averse to work is an empirical question specific to time and place. > when a man gets home from work, > he starts working on his hobby. "Labor" as a factor of production implies human action in the production of wealth with a market value. One's hobby, which provides no services of value to others, is leisure, not labor. > So, has Mill located a real economic axiom? No. It is an empirical observation that only applies in those times and places where it is observed. The more universal axiom is that of Carl Menger (Principles of Economics, 1871), that values are subjective. The utility of labor to the worker, apart from the wage, is thus subjective and cannot be generalized as objectively positive or negative. For example, regarding toil, some workers like a challenge and others don't. Fred Foldvary