Can you explain why Jennifer Aniston earns $30 million a year and a schoolteacher $40,000 a year? What is a monopsonist? How does a monopsonist differ from a monopolist? Supposedly Larry Bird once said that he would play basketball for $10,000 per year. Yet he was paid over $1 million per year. If the quote is correct, how much were Bird’s transfer earnings? How much was his economic rent?
236: Walmart is vilified by many people as being evil, destroying jobs and cities. Others note that it has the lowest prices and is the largest employer in the country. What is the difference? Is Walmart a monopsonist? Early in her journalistic career, Gloria Steinem posed as a Playboy Bunny to examine the inside of a Playboy Club. Steinem discovered that the Bunnies had to purchase their costumes from the club, pay for cleaning them, purchase their food from the club, and so on. This ‘‘company store’’ exploited the employees (the Bunnies), according to Steinem. Explain what Steinem meant by exploitation.
