Growth rests on workers selling labor for less than the value they create

Evidence

But this is not the whole story. The version of society that experts impose on us puts us in a chokehold. To satisfy our needs, we depend on a system whose logic is not only indifferent to them but also requires our exploitation. Economic growth is produced by a specific social order in which the majority of citizens are compelled to sell their labor power in exchange for a wage that is less than the value they produce. This means that the profits generated by workers form the basis of economic growth. This is a fundamental characteristic of the society we live in, what I call the capital order. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 95

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the book’s central term, the ‘capital order,’ as compulsory wage labor underpinning growth.
• DEEPTHINKING: The full claim that exploitation is not an accident but the foundation capitalism’s growth logic requires — this is the load-bearing premise for the whole book.
• XREF: connects to: Wage labour has grown more pervasive even as manufacturing employment declined — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 480; All capitalist growth rests on a gap between wages and value created — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 1137; The profits workers generate form the actual basis of capitalist economic growth. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 95 (+6 more)