For Whom Do People Work All Day?
Abstract
Personal finance education frequently fails to consider the broader context in which a person's finances are located, specifically who benefits from the labor that produces those finances and whether workers are appropriately compensated for them. In this article, I use surplus labor theory to demonstrate that within the corporate structure of work, it is frequently not the person who labors who is the primary beneficiary of that work. Within a labor-conscious personal finance framework, workers at all levels in society may be more capable of understanding and engaging in public policy discussions about who ought to benefit from their work.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Financial Literacy
Pension
Retirement Analysis
Housing
Finance
and Neoliberalism
Political Economy and Marxism
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Routledge eBooks
- Pages
- 40–49
- Publication date
- 13 February 2026
- Language
- EN
- Document type
- Book chapter