Worker insecurity functions as a deliberate competitive asset for capital
Evidence
Deregulation of the labor market exposes workers to strong economic coercion and is among the primary causes of underpaid work in Italy. However, economists speak for the violent truth of our economy: worker insecurity is not a problem but an important competitive asset. People’s well-being is certainly not a variable in the logic of capital. The economists’ formula works: more precariousness means more disciplined workers and thus better conditions for capital accumulation. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 232
Deregulation of the labor market exposes workers to strong economic coercion and is among the primary causes of underpaid work in Italy. However, economists speak for the violent truth of our economy: worker insecurity is not a problem but an important competitive asset. People’s well-being is certainly not a variable in the logic of capital. The economists’ formula works: more precariousness means more disciplined workers and thus better conditions for capital accumulation. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 232
Categorization
- APHORISMS: ‘People’s well-being is certainly not a variable in the logic of capital’ — a brutal, quotable compression of the book’s thesis worth returning to.
- XREF: ‘Labor discipline through austerity’ ties to the reading purpose’s foundational critique of how austerity causes harm. — connects to: Flexible capital’s ephemerality atomizes workers and enables individualism — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 1049; Corporate benefit dependency converts workers into watchdogs of profitability — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 260; Unemployment functions as the pivot keeping labor markets within exploitative limits of capital dominance — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 256 (+5 more)
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention, 232; Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 232