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I’m reading @John_T_Harvey’s 2016 “An Introduction to PK Economics: Involuntary Unemployment With Perfectly Flexible Wages & Prices” (researchgate.net/publication/30…).

I found this page, especially the graph & the final para referring to it, particularly challenging.👇
👆Here’s the (full) final paragraph in the above page-screenshot.

It says “the real wage” is equal to both "the marginal product of labor" and "the marginal disutility of work” and that “None of this is the least bit controversial, and Keynes does not take issue with either.”👇
👆According to Wikipedia:👇
👆Finally, as I understand it, mainstream economics believes that work is always a negative. *Disutility* means not useful, and is the opposite of utility.👇
👆**Marginal disutility** is, from the worker’s point of view, the balance between the pain of working and the benefit of the wage received for doing so.👇
👆So, to say that “the real wage is equal to the marginal product of labor" means, from the **business owner’s** point of view, that the wage is whatever it takes to balance the level of desired production with the number of workers required to achieve it.👇
👆To say that “the real wage is equal to the marginal disutility of work" means, from the *laborer’s* point of view, that the wage is whatever it takes to balance the pleasure of that wage with the displeasure of working.👇
👆Now, regarding the graph, I believe this is the correct interpretation: Business wants to pay workers high enough so that they choose to stay and produce what is demanded by their customers, but no more.👇
👆Putting these together, it seems that “the real wage is equal to both the marginal product of labor and the marginal disutility of work” is simply an expression of the intersection of those two diagonal lines – where business and labor are both satisfied.👇
👆 (Understanding that the meaning of “satisfied" is dramatically affected by whether we’re currently at or below full employment.)👇
👆I’m unsure why it only refers to the real wage (which is adjusted for inflation) and not the nominal wage (which is not), but otherwise, although i’m sure there’s more to learn, that seems roughly correct.

/end
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