Mainstream economics denies workers agency by modeling them as substitutable production inputs

Evidence

As workers came into a new status as protagonists of a political process advancing toward a new economic system, bourgeois economists categorically denied this agency (and continue to do so today). Indeed, mainstream economists portray workers as substitutable cogs in the economic machine— in essence, inputs in the production machine. Workers’ only constructive action is their choice of moving from one wage job to another. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 513

Categorization

• XREF: Directly connects to the reader’s thesis that austerity is a class weapon: economists’ modeling of labor as an interchangeable input is the theoretical precondition for treating wage cuts as matter-of-fact policy. — connects to: Mainstream economics denies workers political agency beyond job choice; Economic institutions perpetuate themselves through reproducing workers’ consciousness — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 1130

Broader Connections

• Mainstream economics denies workers political agency beyond job choice #expands (0.95)
• Economic institutions perpetuate themselves through reproducing workers’ consciousness #complicates (0.80) — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 1130