Editing Openai/690e0c6e-a0a0-8008-a8d6-170f8b930892 (section)

==== B. Friction, Power, and Market Concentration ====

(Accepts the intuition that formal equality ≠ real equality; substitutes market imperfections and power for Marx’s class exploitation.)
# Alan Manning, ''Monopsony in Motion: Imperfect Competition in Labor Markets'' (Princeton University Press, 2003). — A foundational text on modern monopsony theory showing persistent employer power in “formally free” labour markets.
# José Azar, Ioana Marinescu & Marshall Steinbaum, “Labor Market Concentration” Journal of Human Resources, 2022 (earlier NBER WP 24147). — Empirical evidence that U.S. wage levels are 15–20 % lower due to concentration—an empirical analogue of “extraction.”
# Jan De Loecker, Jan Eeckhout & Gabriel Unger, “The Rise of Market Power and the Macroeconomic Implications” Quarterly Journal of Economics 135 (2), 2020. — Documents post-1980s mark-up growth and declining labour share; echoes Marx’s idea that capital accumulation reduces labour’s relative claim.
# Loukas Karabarbounis & Brent Neiman, “The Global Decline of the Labor Share” Quarterly Journal of Economics 129 (1), 2014. — Landmark study linking automation, globalization, and declining labour share — empirical evidence that “formal equality” hides structural shifts.