The mainstream economics perspective is the only school of thought that believes that labor and management truly have equal bargaining power in the labor market.

Mainstream economics posits that labor and management have equal bargaining power in the labor market based on the theoretical assumptions of perfect competition and rational expectations. However, other schools of economic thought, such as critical economics and institutional economics, argue that power imbalances exist in the labor market due to factors such as unequal access to information, bargaining skills, and resources.