Capitalists themselves are compelled to innovate by impersonal market forces

Evidence

It might seem like capitalists have the freedom to decide whether they should invest in technology to boost productivity. But this is not so. Rather, companies feel market pressure to increase productivity just to keep up with their competitors. Thus it is not just workers who are bound by impersonal forces but also the owners of the means of production. Those who do not innovate fail to secure profits, and therefore do not survive as capitalists. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 124

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A compact statement of the insight that capital is not a class of free actors but a structural position whose occupants are as coerced by competition as workers are by wages — dissolves the actor/agent framing of capitalism.
• XREF: connects to: Knight held that capitalism’s survival paradoxically requires individuals to defy its own incentives — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 95; Capitalism’s coercion is impersonal market dependence rather than personal domination. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention, 77; Competition among capitalists structurally demands constant technological change — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 21 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Capitalism’s coercion is impersonal market dependence rather than personal domination. #expands (0.92) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 77
• Competition among capitalists structurally demands constant technological change #corroborates (0.88) — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 21
• Capitalists are as bound by market imperatives as workers are #expands (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 124
• Market dependence makes workers hope for capitalist success. #complicates (0.78) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 368
• Distinctive property relations generate capitalism’s market imperatives #expands (0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 205