Absolutely. I’ve said this very thing many times before. The problem is that we have to figure out how to allocate resources in a world where there is falling demand for First World workers who (used to) make a good living. Some of that is due to technology, and some of that is due to the off-shoring of good jobs/importing cheap labor.
Do we relegate all of those former First-World workers to the welfare rolls? Do we expect them to take menial jobs in service of the wealthy few…eating crumbs and living in crowded mud huts, while the rich get richer? How do you see that ending?
What sort of solutions do you see as an answer to the problem?[/quote]
You missed it completely.
As for the solution… It’s easy and a political firestorm. The world needs less people… There is no value in human manual labor and even the technology services are suffering the same fate.
Take a look at China… Their economic and political policy centers around one thing and on thing only… How to keep people employed.
As SDR already stated the availability of labor is what drives wages not what the wage earner thinks they should earn.
And I don’t disagree with your sentimentality… Again your heart is in the right place but not your head… Bill Maher had a very good, but miss guided point… He said that the wealthy should be praying for wealth distribution because when the disparity is that great… That’s when the rich start getting kidnapped and held for ransom. He is correct about that… Its happening all over the Americas exclusive of the US and Canada… But the day may not be far off.
It’s a tough world out there… adapt or die.
Our children will have it tougher as more labor than before will be available. If the labor force does not decrease to the point where the demand for it is high then supply side will always drive labor down. It’s just that simple.
To answer your last question directly. Yes regulate those to welfare rolls or the living under a bridge. It is up to the individual to compete in this world. If you chose not to arm yourself with unique skills that set you apart then you suffer the consequences of your action. That is the way it is! Let me caveat the last statement as pertaining to this country and a few others. Everyone, with some exceptions, get a pretty good crack at being successful here. Many too many take the easy route. “Come work for GIANT Corp” out of high school… Do thirty years here and have a decent life… Those days have long… LONG… gone and for anyone to have an expectation that is will return again is seriously delusional. The conditions in which the middle class thrived are gone unless the US wants to bomb everyone else’s manufacturing infrastructure and keep the country repressed for forty years.
Twenty years ago I would have been an upper middle class citizen. Now I am just a middle class citizen because the value of what I do has decreased.
A little bit of a rant mixed with a lot of truth. I do not offer a solution nor do I want one to your stated problem. I don’t want to be in a union or normalized society where the playing field is “leveled” just to make people feel good about themselves.
I want to get bloody… I want to compete… I don’t want some structure that I am confined to so that others feelings aren’t hurt. I don’t have any problem with people knowing that I am their better in certain measures (career). Indeed I am not as good as they are in others but I excel at my job for one reason and one reason only. It keeps me off welfare, from out of under the bridge, and being outmoded. This job has made me fatter and sometimes unhappy but I go home at night and sleep well knowing that I got me to where I am, with some relative security, and not some damned notion of fair play.
I also know that my productive is such an outlier among my peers that my bosses wouldn’t dream of firing me unless the department is completely closed down. Most people don’t want to make that sacrifice for job security but that is the new reality.
This is just my opinion and this is where I draw a shit storm of criticism but I think people who belong to unions are, in a certain sense, cowards. They are afraid to admit to themselves their worth and that perhaps there are people out there willing to do their jobs better for less.
The world you offer is pretty attractive CAR but it is not going too happened again in the foreseeable future unless something very drastic and regrettable happens to it.
No malice intended though the second to the last line was pretty provocative,
