This slams a post by Robert Reich, who as readers here know I have sort of a love/hate reading relationship with.
Reich's an old liberal in an era in which it seems the ancient hands of the Baby Boom Generation just won't let go of the levers of government, even though they started operating those levers when they were mechanical rather than electronic. Given that, like all people do, they tend to have an understanding of problems based on the world of their youth, rather than reality,
Witness:
Conversatio
This is the graph everyone needs to see for International Workers' Day.
I suspect Mr. Reich doesn't appreciate what this illustrates, which would principally be the introduction of technology more than anything else. Technological advances are making individual workers more productive, and therefore decreasing their need, and depressing wages.
By way of illustration, how many workers in heavy industry in 1955, when this graph basically peaks for union membership, were needed to do a task, as opposed to 2023?
Additionally, this graph goes from the point at which US industry was the major western survivor of World War Two, and therefore serving the world, through the point where much of American industry left to go overseas. That was a joint project of the left and the right. . .
gave rise to Rust Belt discontent, and fed the populist movement the nation is now contending with. I'm not saying the decline in Union membership is a good thing, but I am saying that the way politicians and pundits seem to imagine . . .
American industry as frozen in time when in fact the march of time and technology has totally changed the landscape needs to be recognized. So, yes, Mr. Reich, this really is the May 1 graph people need to see and understand, yourself included.
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