Unemployment serves as discipline that keeps employed workers docile and grateful

Evidence

Even if we have terrible job hours, receive meager paychecks, don’t see our children, and spend more time working than doing anything else, what do we have to complain about? We should be grateful we have a job. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 282

Categorization

• DEFINE: Concretely illustrates how the reserve army of labor functions as social discipline.
• XREF: connects to: U.S. officials viewed unemployment as a deliberate worker-discipline tool. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 18; Unemployment is not a flaw of capitalism but essential to it — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 251; Unemployment functions as a deliberate worker-discipline device — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention, 18 (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Fear of unemployment disciplines workers into subordination to capital. #corroborates (0.97) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 250
• Unemployment functions as a deliberate worker-discipline device #corroborates (0.95) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 18
• Unemployment structurally disciplines workers and lowers labor costs in capitalism #corroborates (0.95) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 150
• Depoliticized labor markets discipline workers through the threat of unemployment and lower wages #corroborates (0.90) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 796
• Unemployment functioned as a deliberate political weapon to weaken labor #corroborates (0.90) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 994
• Most workers stay in bad jobs only from fear of unemployment. #expands (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 253
• Poverty and unemployment function as deliberate system solutions, not failures #corroborates (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 159
• Welfare functions as social control by giving workers something to lose #expands (0.72) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1661