Coal owners could profit by suppressing wages at national economic cost

Evidence

Indeed, coal company owners could guarantee high profi ts through pressure on wages: “We have, in fact, as a nation, got the mine workers’ labour too cheap for our economic health” (Great Britain, Royal Commission on Coal Industry 1919a, xviii). Th is modest attack on the capitalist tradition— an attack that asserted a contradiction between private interests and public gains— reached economic experts at home and overseas. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 398

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Capitalist expansion requires wage workers separated from their own means of production — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 611; Profit comes from surplus value workers generate — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 103; Capital accumulation drives the profit rate down by reducing human labor per unit — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 1031 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Capitalist expansion requires wage workers separated from their own means of production #expands (0.80) — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 611
• Profit comes from surplus value workers generate #expands (0.72) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 103
• Capital accumulation drives the profit rate down by reducing human labor per unit #expands (0.72) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 1031
• Even orthodox economists in 1919 backed coal nationalization as efficient #qualifies (0.72) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1669
• Dollar hegemony was secured by deliberately suppressing American working-class wages #exemplifies (0.72) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 199