Doly wrote:What is missing from your picture is what happens when a period of growth inevitably comes to an end.
Are you saying that growth is over? If so when do you think it ended?
It's easy to be generous when there is plenty for everyone. It's when the period of growth ends that you see the biggest increases in inequality.
First, generosity has nothing to do with capitalism, in fact self-interest is what motivates Adam Smiths Invisible Hand. To be a capitalist you must at heart be ungenerous, after all you are asking people to work for less than their worth so that you can mine the difference. Ask the Walton kids, gramps was a miser.
Second, the gilded age was not the end of anything, it was the beginning of modern industry, yet it featured fantastic inequality.
Third, the
third industrial revolution period we are now in features productivity growth similar to the proceeding 70 years, the only thing different is wages.
Now, had you said that in 1972 OPEC broke capitalism I might have at least granted the possibility, but you didn't, you just quoted Trupin. But turns out that embargoes and the resulting push to efficiency that lowered industrial and commercial fossil consumption post-OPEC didn't put a dent in the owners pre-tax haul in the least, in fact it skyrocketed from there:
If you read Peter Turchin, you would see that in the battle between the elites and labor, the common pattern is that the elites win initially.
Initially? You implied above that growth already ended.
Yet inequality has been rising for 50 years and is accelerating.
Labor arbitrage is a symptom of inequality, rather than a cause. Why are companies the ones that get to pick and choose, rather than workers?
I can't tell if you're joking or we're talking about different things. Prior to the acceleration of globalization in the '70s, wealth inequality in the US was quite low for half a century after the Depression. But playing one labor force against another is as old as capitalism.
The northeast US was initially an exporter of textiles to Europe in the 1800s because labor was cheaper here, then later after the civil war the mills moved to the south, because of cheaper labor, then finally the mills went overseas because of... cheaper labor.
Offshoring jobs to undeveloped third world countries with few jobs and zero wages effectively made US workers obsolete and gave capital a huge boost. Not only wages at a fraction of the US level but no pesky unions, no pensions, no benefits, no regulations, no OSHA. The hollowing of the middle class is obvious, the cause is loss of skilled jobs, mostly manufacturing. And it took place at the outset of the latest plague of inequality.
Why do companies get to choose employees? Usually it is because they have the jobs. Especially when they go into a poor country where there are no jobs. This is not new.
As for automatization, machinery is nothing new. Why is machinery a problem for employment today and not in the sixties? Why haven't workers displaced by machines found other jobs?
Not just machines. But remote control machines! By automated control I'm talking about the computers and networks, initially proprietary but then migrating to the internet that allowed real time oversight of production anywhere in the world. No more pith helmets and quinine, typed reports air-mailed in CC triplicate. But near instant oversight anywhere. Remote control. But wait there's more...
Numeric controlled equipment that reduced the need for skilled human precision. Any untrained, unschooled child could do the loading and sorting and dexterous work the machine couldn't do. And last but most...
Containerization. Although it seems trivial and mundane, standardized containers eliminated the need for longshoremen and haulers to handle each unique cargo package individually—basically it standardized everything to the size of a ConEx box. Eventually after ISO standards were adopted in 1970 and trucking and rail deregulated, also in the '70s, containerized transmodal
became shipping:
producer >trucks >trains >Ships >trains >trucks >customer
All in one standard interlocking box, all moved by machine, never touched by hand. All for a fraction of the old cost. This one innovation singlehandedly enabled globalization. And killed American manufacturing...
In the mid 1970s.
And why are there two-income families in the first place? Because at one point there were so many jobs that needed to be done, that females were encouraged to work. Why is that no longer the case?
Surprised to have to point out that
in the 60s women earned half that of a man. And today women still earn 16% less than men even though they are now better educated! The stories I've heard from women in my own generation harassed at work and paid half of mens wage doesn't sound like encouragement to me.
Why were there so many jobs? Because why wouldn't an employer hire two women for the price of one man?
And just between you and me, this picture explains a lot of the current "burn it down" attitude of certain demographics.
Peter Turchin's perspective...
LOL, you need a new guru. Hari Seldon he ain't
.