Education justifies income partly as compensation for endured pain

Evidence

It is immediately evident that profits will be greater, the lower is the total wage bill paid by the employer and the greater is the productivity and intensity of labor. Education in the United States plays a dual role in the social process whereby surplus value, i.e., profit, is created and expropri­ ated. On the one hand, by imparting technical and social skills and appro­ priate motivations, education increases the productive capacity of workers. On the other hand, education helps defuse and depoliticize the potentially explosive class relations of the production process, and thus serves to perpetuate the social, political, and economic conditions through which a portion of the product of labor is expropriated in the form of profits. — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 226 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Income correlates with education independent of measured cognitive skill — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 1010; People justify income inequality through education’s effort, time, and responsibility — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2221; Education functions as a status marker detached from personal blame — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2223 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Education simultaneously raises worker productivity and defuses class conflict to preserve profits #complicates (0.74) — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 226