Economics as we know it has been around since the late 18th century, but the field still barely acknowledges the existence of power dynamics as a motivating force in the labor market.
Trickle-downers who oppose raising the minimum wage, for instance, will often suggest that workers who want a higher wage should simply quit their jobs and find a new employer who’s willing to pay their desired rate.
That might make sense in a simplified textbook object lesson, but it doesn’t work in the real world, where parents have to feed their children three times a day, and people who work at a manufacturing plant don’t have the funds to uproot their lives and move to another state when they want a raise.
In a perfect economic system, employers would need workers just as much as workers needed their employers.
In reality, workers are disposable and employers hold almost all of the power.
Paul Constant 