Employers profit precisely because they cannot buy workers’ experience directly.

Evidence

You might think it extremely frustrating to employers that they cannot buy the architect’s eureka moment, the waiter’s spontaneous smile, the teacher’s tear directly, without which their employee’s work produces no value. On the contrary, employers resemble the customer who bought a jacket for a thousand dollars only to find two thousand dollars sewn in its lining. Indeed, if they don’t, they go bust! — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 73

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces ‘experiential labour’ — the sellable-surplus core of Marx’s labour theory the book builds on.
• QUESTION: Why exactly can experiential labour not be bought? The paradox drives the whole profit theory and deserves pressing on.
• XREF: connects to: Employers capture surplus from labour they cannot actually buy — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 71; Capital profits arise because experiential labour cannot be bought directly. — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 127; Experiential labour cannot be bought directly, only time and potential can — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 127 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Capital profits arise because experiential labour cannot be bought directly. #corroborates (0.98) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 127
• Profit arises from labour’s uncommodifiable experiential dimension #corroborates (0.95)
• Experiential labour cannot be bought directly, only time and potential can #expands (0.92) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 127
• Employers can only buy workers’ time, never their effort #qualifies (0.85)
• Capitalism must keep finding uncommodified experience to profit from #expands (0.80) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 129
• Profit only arises because workers produce more value than they are paid. #qualifies (0.75) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 103