05-10-2011, 03:38 PM
Grace62:
That was excellent, Grace, I agree with almost everything you said.
Here's a bit of my conjecture about how some happenings over the last several decades have played a big role in leading us to this state in labor-management relations: After WWII the U.S. economy was a relative superstar. We could build a lot of stuff and people everywhere in the world were demanding a lot of stuff. Labor unions were still strong in the U.S. after the struggles of late 19th Century through to the Great Depression. So with demand high and labor unions strong after WWII, we went through the 50's and 60's with labor and management were both getting wealthier at pretty much the same rate. By the late 60's and early 70's, though, the rest of the world was getting much more industrialized and transportation systems were reaching more places with greater efficiency. Management found that it was becoming increasingly viable to make more profits by using labor in other countries. The "balance of power" between labor and management that had existed a couple of decades after WWII was crumbling - with management getting more and more powerful.
In the capitalist/free-market system there has to be losers. If nearly everyone capable of working has a job then workers (labor) have a stronger hand to play in asking for more compensation for their labor. That leads to runaway inflation. The system breaks down if everyone has work - for the system to function there always has to be a group of people hungry enough for work to be willing to work for less than someone else is making at a job that they can do. (That is why it always pisses me off when I hear people implying that someone who can't find work must be morally deficient.) As long as there is sufficient demand for their products, management is generally better able to make more profits when there are more people desperate to get work. Because of well developed transportation systems, the rate of population growth that happens in even semi-industrialized areas of the world will continue to assure that management will continue to have the upper hand by far over labor - unless the rules of the capitalist/free market system are modified.
What I would like to see in American business, and maybe we're finally starting to turn this page, is the return of "knowledge people" to management, and a turn away from the "money people."
Knowledge people actually understand the product the company sells and the industry and bigger business environment of which it is a part. If we'd kept visionary "knowledge people" at the helm of our auto manufacturing businesses for example, could some of that disaster have been avoided?
That was excellent, Grace, I agree with almost everything you said.
Here's a bit of my conjecture about how some happenings over the last several decades have played a big role in leading us to this state in labor-management relations: After WWII the U.S. economy was a relative superstar. We could build a lot of stuff and people everywhere in the world were demanding a lot of stuff. Labor unions were still strong in the U.S. after the struggles of late 19th Century through to the Great Depression. So with demand high and labor unions strong after WWII, we went through the 50's and 60's with labor and management were both getting wealthier at pretty much the same rate. By the late 60's and early 70's, though, the rest of the world was getting much more industrialized and transportation systems were reaching more places with greater efficiency. Management found that it was becoming increasingly viable to make more profits by using labor in other countries. The "balance of power" between labor and management that had existed a couple of decades after WWII was crumbling - with management getting more and more powerful.
In the capitalist/free-market system there has to be losers. If nearly everyone capable of working has a job then workers (labor) have a stronger hand to play in asking for more compensation for their labor. That leads to runaway inflation. The system breaks down if everyone has work - for the system to function there always has to be a group of people hungry enough for work to be willing to work for less than someone else is making at a job that they can do. (That is why it always pisses me off when I hear people implying that someone who can't find work must be morally deficient.) As long as there is sufficient demand for their products, management is generally better able to make more profits when there are more people desperate to get work. Because of well developed transportation systems, the rate of population growth that happens in even semi-industrialized areas of the world will continue to assure that management will continue to have the upper hand by far over labor - unless the rules of the capitalist/free market system are modified.