Labour and capital: update

[Philos]

Folks,

An article by Eduardo Porter in the NYT (27/4/14) gives us this:

“In the United States, the share of national income that goes to workers is at its lowest level since the 1950s, and corporate profits take the largest share of national income since the 1920s.”

Of course, we have seen this process accelerating for many decades, not just in the US but elsewhere in the developed world. The interesting question is - why?

Porter suggests the usual suspects: technological advances, weakening union power, erosion of minimum wage, dwindling natural resources, lack of good business ideas and the rise of rewards to inherited wealth.

It’s a hard one. Looking at causes for long term trends is never easy, and I am inclined to think that there is a deep driver of this process, rather than a basket of likely causes.

What might it be?

Alex.

 

[Zeluvia]

Human nature. Once upon a time, we roamed the world freely.
Then the idea of ownership of land came to be. Eventually, if you didn't have any land, you were forced to work for someone else.

Capital is the new land. The same dynamics at work. People fight or work hard to OWN shit, pass it to their children, acquire power to keep the shit they own, which is easier because they do OWN shit, and eventually, create an upper class that does everything it can to stay that way.

Everyone else is a peasant. I have been wondering about this system for a bit, which got me thinking about leadership and how humans create and follow leaders, because I think that is related.

 

[Philos]

Human nature. Once upon a time, we roamed the world freely.
Then the idea of ownership of land came to be. Eventually, if you didn't have any land, you were forced to work for someone else.

Capital is the new land. The same dynamics at work. People fight or work hard to OWN shit, pass it to their children, acquire power to keep the shit they own, which is easier because they do OWN shit, and eventually, create an upper class that does everything it can to stay that way.

Everyone else is a peasant. I have been wondering about this system for a bit, which got me thinking about leadership and how humans create and follow leaders, because I think that is related.

Zeluvia,

Yes, the enclosure of land and the flight of peasants to the cities has a lot to do with this. I think of 'working class' not as people who work, but people who have no other choice.

Alex.

 

[Zeluvia]

You are mixed up. The flight of peasants to the cities didn't really happen until technology improved agriculture, making them unnecessary on the landed estates.

They didn't really "run" to the cities, so much as were pushed off the land they used to work.

If you go back far enough, you find much of the "landed" estates and Lordships and Earlships what have you in Europe were the remnants of gifts to Military Leaders from the Emperor of Rome to reward service. The whole system started with retiring military men, and their close friends (knights). Of course some were indeed old barbarian tribal situations, but much of the land grab and ownership rights were started by Rome as a way to pay off their army and reward them.

It's not like Dick Cheney and Haliburton are a new thing....

 

[Philos]

Zeluvia,

I was agreeing with you.

Alex.

 

[Canard DuJour]

Yep. Taking a longer historical view than living memory, the process we've seen accelerating in recent decades isn't change, but capitalism reverting to type after a post-war blip. The norms of boomer era TV and movies - single breadwinner dad whose job affords the family financial security, kids who can expect better - already look strange and foreign.