06-29-2017, 03:56 AM
(06-29-2017, 03:20 AM)Galen Wrote:(06-28-2017, 06:06 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:(06-27-2017, 06:27 AM)Mikebert Wrote: That this mechanism can "keep corporations in line" is disputed by the trend in fraction of output that goes to worker, which has steadily declined over the past 30 years showing that bosses have had the upper hand over the employees. In general management typically has the upper hand as they are many (they represent shareholders and management who are thousands of people controlling billions of dollars) against one (the employee, who if he controlled significant wealth would not need the job).
The size disparity was just as true 50 years ago, and back then employees were getting a much larger share of productivity improvements, so that's not what's driving the issue. What has changed has been high levels of immigration, undermining employees' bargaining position by providing more competition. That has everything to do with government coercion and little to do with business coercion.
You are also leaving out the massive increase in crony capitalism and the exponential increase in the size of the Federal Register. Then there is that huge debt sucking capital out of the private sector along with the rounds of QE which were explicitly done to push up asset prices. Care to take a guess at who that helps out? It sure isn't small business.
Other contributing factors:
1. Population growth. First, workers face more competition for any jobs, especially for those well-paying jobs whose growth does not increase with the population. Of course, accountants in Chicago are competing with accountants in Atlanta for accounting opportunities in Houston; fast-food workers in Lansing are not competing with fast-food workers in Grand Rapids for similar jobs in Kalamazoo. Second, workers are competing for real estate, and landlords like Donald Trump can exploit that competition to the fullest. Contrast the situation in places with declining population, like (at the extreme) a dying city like Youngstown, Ohio.
2. The disappearance of manufacturing jobs. These jobs paid well for people of limited education but who were physically fit, willing to get their hands dirty, and willing to do hard work under rigid discipline. Contrast the work of a convenience-store cashier. Limited education is still a reality, but the work isn't strenuous... and the only dirty work might be sweeping a floor or cleaning a toilet.
3. The rise of an ideology that holds that no human suffering is in excess so long as economic elites (including the executive elite which resembles a Soviet-style nomenklatura) get what they want. That ideology largely defines the values shaping American politics. That's the plantation ideology of the South with the Gilded-Age ideology of the North. This also fits the extreme narcissism that the elites exult in themselves but do not tolerate among the masses who are expected to humble themselves before their economic masters and pretend to love doing so. Workers get the shaft.
4. Degradation of American democracy. Lobbyists really control the federal legislative branch and most state legislatures. The paymasters of the lobbyists want high costs and low wages to workers... and high profits but low taxes for themselves. The paymasters of the lobbyists are the economic elites. Those elites like the illusion of democracy more than the reality.
The United States of America is no longer a democracy. It is simply a pure plutocracy.
5. The loss of democracy means the loss of responsibility of the economic elites to any other than themselves. But we are all responsible to those elites.
6. The tax laws are designed to favor giant enterprises but make compliance difficult for small-scale businesses.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.