A lack of a price floor would lead to 1. higher employment and 2. higher rates of wage growth over time, because it means more people are employed contributing to the production of economic resources that can then be invested into new productivity-enhancing capital.

>> The capitalist always has a way to drive the cost of labor down, whether it is by overloading workers or not. The workers do not have the means to negotiate hiring price in most instances, so equilibrium analysis does not apply either way. One side has a smooth choice, the other has barely a binary choice, and ofte not even that.

This is simply not true. Wages tripled in China over the last 20 years:

https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/chinas-wage-...

Another example is the so-called Gilded Age US. During the late 19th century in the US, there was no income tax, personal or corporate, little-to-no labor regulations, and very weak unions (largely because of the lack of labor regulations granting them extra-contractual rights at the expense of the free market).

Wages grew at records in the US during the late 19th century, and this was amidst massive immigration of low-income laborers from Europe, who increase the supply of low-skilled labor and thus apply downward pressure on wages.

In neither of these cases was this because of regulations. It was because of investment of surplus output into new capital by profit-motivated individuals, that increased productivity and thereby allowed even larger surplus outputs. All these additional economic resources led to labor being bid up. We see a microcosm of that in Silicon Valley amongst tech workers.

So productivity growth, derived from the [ investment -> productivity-boost -> greater investment ] cycle is the primary source of wage growth, and the reason wages are 20X higher today in the US (after adjusting for inflation) than they were 200 years ago. We're nowhere near the limits of what levels of productivity this fundamental market process can attain.

Adam Smith:

"As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can, both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce maybe of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain; and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest, he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it."