ABSTRACT
The discipline of economics is commonly subdivided along two lines: (i) production and consumption with a commodity focus; (ii) micro and macro economics depending upon whether the focus is households and firms or the economy as a whole. The concept of the labour market seems to resist these divisions. It can be thought of as the bridge between production and consumption, representing both, labour as a factor of production and leisure as the realm of consumption. Whether labour market outcomes are determined at the micro or macro economic level is one of the most heavily contested issues in economics since the Keynesian [Chapter 7] revolution in the 1940s. Thinking of these two lines of division as a two-dimensional space, the idea of the labour market can be located at, and thought of as, the very centre of the discipline. Reviewing the labour market model more closely reveals important features and shortcomings of economic theory, which allow us to sketch a new way of conceptualising paid work and other spheres of life in line with contemporary psychological models of human motivation.
