T. A. Gardner
Thread Killer
the middle class is disappearing due to globalization. if you dont have an investment portfolio of multinational corporations and work for a living in america, the opportunities are quickly dwindling from sending so much overseas, wrecklessly.
it's structural, just like the depression.
It's more about a technological revolution in progress. The same thing happened with the early decades, even the first century, of the Industrial Revolution. It upended society and how things were organized. Well, we are now about 50 to 100 years depending on where you want to start from into the Electronics Revolution. The Ancient era and the Renaissance didn't upend society like the the Industrial and Electronics Revolution have.
This is the first time in human history we haven't had need for masses of workers doing, well, just about anything. We have a massive surplus of people in developed nations that are for all intents nearly useless. The Left seeks old solutions to this problem from the now dead and gone Industrial Revolution. We no longer have regular wars or even frequent plagues and epidemics (yea, we're having one right now but it will be remarkably sort compared to historical ones that ran on for decades and even centuries). That just exacerbates the problem of what to do with all the surplus people who are not technically literate enough to get high paying, productive jobs in a world where strong backs and weak minds are no longer needed.
For those who can do such jobs, they get good pay and benefits. For those that can't, they must compete for a dwindling number of jobs that are basic labor or require few skills. The Left in seeking a "living wage" for such person is only driving the process of eliminating those jobs forward faster. The model that arose during the Industrial Revolution is no longer valid. What we need is a new model that will make it possible for more people to be useful in the Electronics Age.