Mainstream economists defended capital’s returns as productivity rather than exploitation.

Evidence

In 1920, in the pages of Corriere della sera, Einaudi led a polemic against Marxist ideas circulating in Italy: “Why should a capitalist profit only because the machine is his? Why shall he live without doing anything? Is it not obvious that his profit comes from the exploitation of someone else’s labour?” he asked sarcastically, and continued: “This is the celebrated and vulgar sophism of Karl Marx’s Capital…. But it is enough to ask: how much would be produced if the savers did not produce capital? The answer: nothing. Without capital, labour produces zero.” — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 219

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Mainstream economics gives patrons the knowledge they pay for rather than objective truth. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 806; Fascist-era economists defined profit as capital’s own productivity, not worker exploitation — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 1127