Apparently in some fields, the market value of internship labor is the experience and skills gained plus whatever sub-minimum-wage stipend (if any) is paid by the company. If this were not the case, then the providers of the labor would take their labor and provide it to someone else who is willing to pay the “market” price that you are saying these companies are withholding.
There are some on this thread who are agreeing with the obama administration that the existence in the market of these internships equals slavery. Based on your comments on this thread, it sounded to me as if you were one of them. These posters asserted that companies should be required to pay at least minimum wage for all internships.
You state that I am arguing that people providing the commodity of labor should not be paid for it. I have argued no such thing. I have consistently argued that in some cases the market value of the commodity of labor provided by interns is equal to the value of the experience and skills they acquire in the internship. Once a force outside the market (e.g. government, unions, community organizers, or self-proclaimed market conservatives on posting boards) starts to force companies to pay some arbitrary wage in addition to the market value of the work being provided then those advocacy forces cannot truthfully claim to support the basics of a free market. The bottom line is: if you agree with Obama and the other posters on this thread that companies should be REQUIRED to pay more for internships than what the market is allowing them to pay now, then you favor government intervention rather than free markets.
As Ayn Rand says, “Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue.”
You’d argue otherwise. If there is value in the work an intern does, then pay for it. The intern can then use it to pay for the training.
That way, the intern can see the tangible value he provides and judge whether or not the training the company provides is worth the cost.
Furthermore, the company would then be obligated to actually provide training, as they have taken payment for it. Which would eliminate any chance for companies to simply use interns as unpaid temps.