If an employer attempts to pay wages which are lower than his workers can obtain elsewhere, he will lose his workers and thus will be compelled to change his policy or go out of business. If, other things being equal, an employer pays wages which are above the market level, his higher costs will put him at a competitive disadvantage in the sale of his products, and again he will be compelled to change his policy or go out of business. Employers do not lower wages because they are cruel, nor raise wages because they are kind. Wages are not determined by the employer’s whim. Wages are the prices paid for human labor and, like all other prices in a free economy, are determined by the law of supply and demand.

- Nathaniel Branden. Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966).