Capitalist expansion requires wage workers separated from their own means of production

Evidence

A work force conducive to vigorous capitalist expansion requires a sup­ ply of workers large enough to satisfy the needs of capital while maintain­ ing a “reserve army” of potential workers of sufficient size to keep wages and worker demands at a minimum. This requires, as we have seen, that workers have little recourse but to sell their labor power— i.e., that they be separated from their own means of production. These conditions were far from fulfilled in colonial America. — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 611

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains the structural precondition of capitalist labor markets — separation of workers from means of production — as a definitional/theoretical load-bearing concept.
• XREF: Connects to ch27’s claim that labor subordination is enforced by lack of alternatives, not contracts — the separation from means of production is what removes alternatives. — connects to: US capitalism bypassed feudalism because private property arrived with colonization — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 609; US educational reform responded to the social unrest of new wage laborers — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 617; Capitalism requires disciplining workers into accepting private property and wage relations — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 834 (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Capitalism requires disciplining workers into accepting private property and wage relations #expands (0.90) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 834
• Austerity enforces the wage-labor relation that capitalism requires for growth #expands (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 29
• Capitalist accumulation itself systematically produces a redundant working population #expands (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 243
• Workers’ self-governance sought to abolish the wage relationship and production for profit #complicates (0.75) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 186
• Capitalism must preserve labor as profit source despite its potential abolition #expands (0.75) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 240
• Capital expands by not paying workers for part of their labor #expands (0.70) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 104
• Postwar workers rejected labor as a commodity and demanded democratic control of production #complicates (0.70) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 185