The dominant economic story today depicts wages and profit as equivalent and fair.

Evidence

From the perspective of the labor market, the wage earner has a legally analogous position to that of the employer and is formally free to choose among various possibilities, including leisure. No one will force her to work. If we are in a favorable moment, as wage earners, we can choose the best offer and sign the contract. Neoclassical economists see workers as rational agents perfectly capable of deciding to maximize their utility. In their models, wages correspond to the marginal productivity of the work performed, which means that workers deserve exactly what they receive in their paycheck. There is no exploitation, no expropriation. Everything is good and fair. … This interpretation represents the dominant story today. It is one constructed with stubborn precision by economists and politicians throughout at least the last century, and it empties and mystifies the very concept of profit. Like wage workers, capitalists should indeed be remunerated for the value they produce through capital investment. Wages and profit are really the same thing. End of story. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 100

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the neoclassical marginalist account of wages that Mattei is going to dismantle — the ‘invisible order’ opposite.