Tag Archives: marginal productivity theory

Yves here. One of the main agendas of neoclassical economics is to give Panglossian defenses of the current order a veneer of intellectual legitimacy. If our system is the result of individuals and businesses behaving in logical ways, at least in the minds of economists, surely the outcome is inevitable, and therefore virtuous, or else those operators would do things differently. The Big Lie in all of this is that neoclassical economics takes power completely out of the equation. While it does assume selfishness, in that everyone is out or himself to maximize his utility, it also assumes atomized actors who lack the power to influence markets.

One instructive way to see how these arguments break down is by looking at neoclassical economists justify large disparities in pay. Piketty shows that the idea that people are paid what they are worth, or in neoliberal-speak, according to their marginal productivity, to be a sham