Merchant capital pressuring industrialists on price drives sweatshop labor conditions
Evidence
In recent decades, merchant corporations like Ikea, Costco, Gap, and Zara and electronics companies like Apple have appropriated large chunks of value from industrialists by pressuring them to reduce prices, significantly contributing to poor labor conditions across the globe. It’s no surprise that the garment industry’s fast-fashion clothes are made in sweatshops. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 130
Categorization
- ADDENDUM: Connects closely to ‘On Sacrifice’ dynamics of value extraction, though more directly suits a piece on supply-chain power and how buyer pressure externalizes costs onto workers.
- XREF: connects to: The falling rate of profit forces capitalists to intensify labor exploitation — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2376; Capital accumulation lowers profit rates unless exploitation intensifies via labour rationalisation; Growth rests on workers selling labor for less than the value they create — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention, 95 (+1 more)
Broader Connections
- The falling rate of profit forces capitalists to intensify labor exploitation
#expands(0.88) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2376 - Capital accumulation lowers profit rates unless exploitation intensifies via labour rationalisation
#expands(0.85) - Growth rests on workers selling labor for less than the value they create
#expands(0.82) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 95 - Profit comes from surplus value workers generate
#expands(0.78) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 103