This relationship is the foundation for the argument, made by some trade unionists and labour advocates, that high wages can actually be "good for business". The precedent set by Henry Ford in 1914, who offered workers $5.00 per day (a very high wage at the time) so they could afford to buy the same cars they made, is often invoked.

Never trust an economist with your job. Learn about economics yourself. And make up your own mind about what might protect your job - and what might destroy it.

Employers crave the power to fire workers whose performance is judged inferior-not just to get rid of those particular workers, but more importantly to motivate and discipline the rest of the workforce.

Everyone has an interest in the economy: in how it functions, how well it functions, and in whose interests it functions.

Economic systems come, and economic systems go. No economic system lasts forever. Capitalism is not likely to last forever, either.

With joint-stock corporations, investors can place bets on the success of many different companies, without having to play a central management role in any one of them. This allows investors to diversify their financial holdings. It also allows them to capture profits on their investments, without having to get involved in the dirty, troublesome business of actually running a company.

Proving that profit is economically and morally justifiable, rather than the result of exploitation, has been a central preoccupation of neoclassical economists.