Capitalist growth structurally reduces rather than increases employment.

Evidence

This paradox, that the capitalist expansion of the economy systematically produces unemployment, runs directly counter to what many economists tell us. Growth and investment are supposed to eliminate unemployment, not create it. Yet the long-run dynamics of real competition belie this myth. To win the war of real competition, capital holders constantly invest in new technologies with the aim of increasing workers’ productivity. Technological innovation and mechanization transform production. As accumulation progresses, more is spent on machines than on human labor. In other words, the economic system progresses through labor-saving technologies. Consider, for instance, the agricultural sector—the source of our food. In the middle of the nineteenth century, agriculture employed about 60 percent of US workers; now it employs only 10 percent of the workforce. This is largely due to technological advances such as tractors and mechanical seed drills that automate planting processes, allowing for fields to be cultivated by significantly fewer workers. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 245

Categorization

• XREF: Central to Mattei’s core argument — growth producing unemployment is the economic engine for the class-discipline thesis built out in later chapters. — connects to: Wage labour has grown more pervasive even as manufacturing employment declined — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 480; Capitalism’s progress depends on business failure, not despite it. — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 323; Capitalist growth advances through labor-saving technology that destroys jobs — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 245 (+2 more)
• CANDY: US agriculture went from 60 percent of workers to 10 percent — a striking, tweetable stat.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how does this labor-saving-technology thesis square with genuinely new-job-creating industries? Does Mattei address counterexamples?