Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
Support MFO
Donate through PayPal
Return of Unions Not the Solution for Income Inequality
Actually I didn't think either of the first two links were really bad / The only statement that really bothered me was In fact, according to the Pew Research Center, a reliable source of neutral number crunching, household median income rose between 1967 and 2012 by about $7,000 after accounting for inflation.My problem with this statement is that while I am sure it is true it is also irrelevant as the rise in household median income is basically /primarily due to increased women's participation in the labor force. To give equal time (actually complaint) I was very skeptical of this "Demographics. Baby boomers are living and working longer than expected because of advancements in healthcare, keeping the bargaining power in the labor force skewed in favor of capital " in part because I think of older baby boomers currently working as part of labor/
"Actually I didn't think either of the first two links were really bad"
I have to concur in that assessment. As the first article noted, there are a lot more contributing factors to labor's diminished "cut of the pie" than the reduction of unionization. Even if we could wave a magic wand and restore the labor movement tomorrow, that in and of itself would certainly not change the underlying issues.
Labor markets evolve, economic markets evolve, industrial technology evolves, health and life-expectancy evolve, history evolves. Historically, multiple simultaneous changes in different areas of an economy create situations which may take scores of years to resolve. I suspect this is such a time, and I won't be surprised if things get worse before they get better.
It's a little ironic that we are regretting the transition of the former industrial revolution to whatever comes next: we forget the terrible conditions for labor in the transition into and at the beginning of the industrial revolution. At least we no longer accept the employment of 9 year-old children in American sweatshops for a 12 or 16 hour day, laboring alongside their mothers, as the "new normal". If someone had informed those mothers and children that things would eventually sort themselves out to today's version of "normalcy", would they have been believed?
It just isn't in the nature of the capitalist concept to look at the "big picture" of a national or even world-wide economy, or to predicate individual company policies on those factors. This being so, there will be an irreversible world-wide march towards artificial intelligence and robotics in manufacturing and agriculture, resulting in the redundancy of ever more human labor potential. Person by person, skill by skill, company by company, country by country, this is inevitable. The end result will most likely be a prolonged and painful reconsideration of exactly what it means to "have a job", and a complete reexamination and evolution of the concept that having a job is required as a condition of a normal productive life. There simply won't be enough jobs to occupy the labor of the world population. I believe that this evolution is inexorable and unavoidable, and that some very fundamental societal changes will be required in the next 25 to 100 years.
That being said, I'm really glad that I've lived when I did, and that I'm as old as I am. Pure luck.
Comments
For one as biased as Wall Street Week but on the liberal side try this:
epi.org/news/union-membership-declines-inequality-rises/
"Demographics. Baby boomers are living and working longer than expected because of advancements in healthcare, keeping the bargaining power in the labor force skewed in favor of capital " in part because I think of older baby boomers currently working as part of labor/
I have to concur in that assessment. As the first article noted, there are a lot more contributing factors to labor's diminished "cut of the pie" than the reduction of unionization. Even if we could wave a magic wand and restore the labor movement tomorrow, that in and of itself would certainly not change the underlying issues.
Labor markets evolve, economic markets evolve, industrial technology evolves, health and life-expectancy evolve, history evolves. Historically, multiple simultaneous changes in different areas of an economy create situations which may take scores of years to resolve. I suspect this is such a time, and I won't be surprised if things get worse before they get better.
It's a little ironic that we are regretting the transition of the former industrial revolution to whatever comes next: we forget the terrible conditions for labor in the transition into and at the beginning of the industrial revolution. At least we no longer accept the employment of 9 year-old children in American sweatshops for a 12 or 16 hour day, laboring alongside their mothers, as the "new normal". If someone had informed those mothers and children that things would eventually sort themselves out to today's version of "normalcy", would they have been believed?
It just isn't in the nature of the capitalist concept to look at the "big picture" of a national or even world-wide economy, or to predicate individual company policies on those factors. This being so, there will be an irreversible world-wide march towards artificial intelligence and robotics in manufacturing and agriculture, resulting in the redundancy of ever more human labor potential. Person by person, skill by skill, company by company, country by country, this is inevitable. The end result will most likely be a prolonged and painful reconsideration of exactly what it means to "have a job", and a complete reexamination and evolution of the concept that having a job is required as a condition of a normal productive life. There simply won't be enough jobs to occupy the labor of the world population. I believe that this evolution is inexorable and unavoidable, and that some very fundamental societal changes will be required in the next 25 to 100 years.
That being said, I'm really glad that I've lived when I did, and that I'm as old as I am. Pure luck.