For some fifty years now, the question of how to get labor a fair share has been tantamount. Fact being, it was a problem from the beginning of the industrial age and even before. Union labor has never had leverage – the bosses don’t work for them. For the past 40-50 yrs, the bosses and the shareholders have operated with great reciprocity — management gets rewarded to the extent they reward the holders. Much of this rewards system has come at the expense of the workers, and there wasn’t much they, the workers, could do about it. Over this same period, the demand for labor has decreased. As a result, today’s wages are about one-half what they should be. Looking ahead another 40-50 yrs, as automation continues apace, the situation for the working
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Ken Melvin considers the following as important: US EConomics, US/Global Economics
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For some fifty years now, the question of how to get labor a fair share has been tantamount. Fact being, it was a problem from the beginning of the industrial age and even before. Union labor has never had leverage – the bosses don’t work for them.
For the past 40-50 yrs, the bosses and the shareholders have operated with great reciprocity — management gets rewarded to the extent they reward the holders. Much of this rewards system has come at the expense of the workers, and there wasn’t much they, the workers, could do about it. Over this same period, the demand for labor has decreased. As a result, today’s wages are about one-half what they should be.
Looking ahead another 40-50 yrs, as automation continues apace, the situation for the working class will be many times worse; most production jobs will disappear. We are looking at a future where machines do most of the work of production. One can easily envision a time in the not too distant future when production employs a handful of technicians in place of the many factory workers of the first 200yrs of the industrial age. Many such a factory already exists.
One consequence of the management shareholder reciprocity is today’s Dow Jones Industrial average. An increase in the rate of return on a stock prompts an increase in the stock’s price, prompts a call for a return to maintain the rate. — Voila! a DJIA of $34K. And, greater pressure to keep wages low. The stock market has not been the working class’s friend.
When that automated future is fully here, why would the shareholders need the working class. In fact, one could envision them calling for an end to reproduction amongst all groups other than their own. This means buying themselves an altogether new Supreme Court Majority and re-manipulating the masses into championing this newfound morality. Problem be, who’s going to buy the product that provides the return that they need to support their lifestyle?
That was the original fly in the original ointment. The purpose of an economy was to provide the requisite goods and services. The idea of factory owners taking more than their share, or any share at all, was an imposition of their own making.
Going forward, can we envision an economy that produces the requisite goods and services sans the burden of the rich?