World War II was a much bigger reason and a cause for this. There is a problem with correlation vs causation in the article’s logic. I’d argue the unions were a bi-product of a historically rare moment in time vs cause of equality. The market bust and global world war increased taxation, demand for workers, and value of each worker in the early 40s. Much more importantly, for a few decades after WWII all other global world powers were rebuilding after being leveled by the war. The US instead remained as the last productive developed nation standing for decades and enjoyed likely huge margins as a result of both lack of competition and demand for supplies by the rest of the developed world. Those margins and the unscathed living conditions, also turned the US into a magnet for technical and scientific talent from everywhere else.
The more competition recovered in Japan and elsewhere, the less bargaining power and surplus could be captured by Unions. The Union-driven higher costs of manufacturing also drove outsourcing, off-shoring, and did not lead to higher quality output, (if Unions were producing higher quality that would have kept Japanese-manufactured cars from dominating US car sales shortly after).
Even further, exorbitant labor costs make it worthwhile for manufacturers to do capital investments in automation, and we are seeing the output of that.
The rise in middle class should probably be attributed to investments - in equities, bonds, house purchases. Growing up in Eastern Europe, where only housing investment was an option, and unions were abundant, the middle class that sprouted came from those who invested in property and business. Labor union power and wealth was too politically and corruption influenced to be a sustainable source of growth for the country.
You really need to squint at the sun to conclude that.
As money interests have become more politically powerful, it’s harder and harder for employees to organize. You can get fired at Walmart if 4 people are caught talking to each other.
It’s easy to rag on unions, but usually that’s a surface complaint ignoring the factors causing it. Even globalization is an example. There’s nothing etched in stone that says we need to have child labor mining in Africa for rare earth minerals to make iPhones.
> As money interests have become more politically powerful, it’s harder and harder for employees to organize. You can get fired at Walmart if 4 people are caught talking to each other.
Totally this.
We can't pretend that the likes of Amazon et al haven't been repeatedly caught being openly hostile and extremely agressive towards any semblance of a labour rights organization within their workforce, with union busting strategies being discussed, planned, and executed at the VP level. They went as far as executing smear campaigns in the media targeting labour representatives and activists.
No one can claim that unions are in decline due to some unavoidable law of nature when huge multinationals once led by the richest man in the world invest so much time and effort and money at the VP level to sabotage them.
>Even globalization is an example. There’s nothing etched in stone that says we need to have child labor mining in Africa for rare earth minerals to make iPhones.
This is a concern troll. If you really cared about child labor abroad, you would unequivocally support globalization as parents don't want their kids to be slaves and more jobs in these countries gives parents more options. Child labor and slavery is caused by a lack of oversight more than anything else, and unions in the US won't help that.
Companies don't want to invest in a unstable and corrupt country. Even so, the rapid rise in HDI of the DRC aligns with the growth of their exports.
You seem to be implying that colonization is synonymous with globalization, but let me dispel this notion. The problematic part of colonization were the protectionist aspects of it. The Congolese were unable to compete for the same administrative positions of that the Belgians enjoyed.
Now you tell me how unions in the US are supposed to help the DRC.
I said that globalization is an example of money driving policy at the exclusion of all else. High minded bullshit about resource extraction making your life better is similar to the bullshit narratives used as justification of colonialism.
There is also the fact that the so called “globalization” enabled the free flow of capital, but not the free flow of workers. Meaning it created geographically sanctioned low-labor zones for the capitalist class to exploit, while enforcing strict border controls such that international solidarity between workers of the world could never form.
This is an explicit policy choice by the ruling class, and has proven awfully convenient for the owning class.
I think that’s always the key question. Why are most businesses so vehemently anti-union? Why does the power balance always need to be tipped heavily toward management over labor?
Of course there is not one single factor determining the economic, technical and social development of countries over decades of time.
But the relationship between unions, the labor movement, and social democratic policies is obvious.
Those in turn have had a large impact on equality and standard of living.
The economy benefits from having a larger base of well off consumers, and a well educated, healthy, non-striking labor force. It's a self reinforcing positive spriral.
Not trying to start a flame war, but the Japanese are an example of an economy where unions work really well. Their constitution and labor laws were largely written by New Deal Democrat inflected occupation forces who set up labor rights that Detroit fought against (somewhat successfully) for years. Some have even gone to suggest that the competitiveness of their auto industry stems from the fact that labor is effectively a fixed cost and a controlling stakeholder so the incentives to improveme process align nicely. This isn’t a pro/con union position it is more of a nuance that some unions are better than others and the historical/legal context for unions shapes that effecitvness. Unions can be a positive force but they can also be a negative force. A one sided account for them being good or bad is just too simplistic to be credible.
> World War II was a much bigger reason and a cause for this.
I'm going to stop you right there because that shows you're quite literally making this up based on feelings or beliefs. You're totally misrepresenting the history of labor unions. Labor unions were on the rise all throughout the 1800s and early 1900s.
> The Union-driven higher costs of manufacturing also drove outsourcing, off-shoring, and did not lead to higher quality output, (if Unions were producing higher quality that would have kept Japanese-manufactured cars from dominating US car sales shortly after).
You can't have it both ways in your argument. You set up an initial statement about high Union costs driving outsourcing, and then immediately drop that point as you pivoted to an argument about quality being the driver.
> The Union-driven higher costs of manufacturing also drove outsourcing
Gousing prices are the cause of higher cause of manufacturing. I am not sure how noone is talking that a worker in the west cannot compete eith a worker in a developing country when his rent is 10x higher. Then peolle have the guts to blame unions.
The "middle class" is a myth and is a propaganda tool for creating dissent. There are really only two classes:
1. Capital-owners. Think Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, etc; and
2. Workers. This is anyone who trades their labor for an income. This covers everyone from the janitor to LeBron James.
The idea of the "middle class" is to create a division between them and the "lower class". The "middle class" often look down on the "lower class" and lump those who might rely on welfare, etc. The "lower class" will be blamed for many of society's ills.
The truth is there is no division. What you think of as the "middle class" and "lower class" are exactly the same and have way more in common than to the Musks, Bezos's and Buffett's of the world.
Billionaires have class solidarity. The dire situation of stagnant real wages and skyrocketing cost of living is largely a result of workers not having class solidarity.
Do you employ multiple workers, either directly or through your investments, to be able to sustain yourself through profits?
You are the perfect example - someone who's managed to squairrel away a tiny fraction of the capital pie and now imagines himself to be in a different class.
Just because you now own a sandwind does not you a capitalism make.
Re. unions: especially in the Eastern Europe I don't think unions deserve to be called like that "unions". They were just facades for the "communist" political power to reach into every corner of worker's lives. Unions real meaning is negotiation power against the employers, and you must agree there was exactly zero of this in the EE. Might have been something before communism took over, but after WW2 there was no union left worth their name behind the iron curtain.
It's completely "self-evident" to me that the US can never re-achieve post-WWII prosperity largely for the reasons OP stated.
It was a moment in history that will not repeated in any of our lifetimes. Anything else against this backdrop is basically a rounding error.
I was alive during the drawdown of US industrial capacity and my entire family was blue collar mostly union workers. In my teens and 20's I worked such jobs. This narrative still rings largely true to me. The amount of outright waste and fraud in these industries at the labor level was astronomical. We were begging to be outcompeted. Combined with managerial incompetence we were doomed.
I think stating that something is self-evident is not a helpful argument. First, it seemingly isn’t or else parent would not have posted as such. And secondly, something being self evident is only used when you want to describe an axiom because you cannot prove otherwise.
As someone who lives in a country were unions were one of the major political forces during the 20th century, the impact they had on the social and economic development is truly self evident and mostly (overwhelmingly so) positive.
Of course, the GP might be from a country with another experience.
American labor unions are closer to cartels and the setup would be illegal in many European countries; in some states you aren't forced to join a union, but you still have to pay at least part of the dues that ostensibly covers contact negotiations. In other states, you must join the union as a condition of being hired.
Contrast that with countries where unions (like health care) are not tied to an employer. The whole dynamic is very different, and I think less adversarial between unions and employees.
In the US if you have a problem with your union, you are out of luck. Make waves, and the union will make your life hell. It's a second layer of rent seeking management.
Ever since the SEIU tried to take a cut of all government benefits to families who care for disabled people in MN, it was obvious that unions here exist to serve only themselves.
Ok, fair point from an individuals view. But considering that its known that unions are a controversial opinion, it would still seem rash to state its obviousness.
Saying that something is merely a “correlation” (not a causation—and implying that this other thing is) and saying that something is “self-evident” are both arrogant statements when you just end up saying, hey, look at this narrative that I like instead.
The more competition recovered in Japan and elsewhere, the less bargaining power and surplus could be captured by Unions. The Union-driven higher costs of manufacturing also drove outsourcing, off-shoring, and did not lead to higher quality output, (if Unions were producing higher quality that would have kept Japanese-manufactured cars from dominating US car sales shortly after).
Even further, exorbitant labor costs make it worthwhile for manufacturers to do capital investments in automation, and we are seeing the output of that.
The rise in middle class should probably be attributed to investments - in equities, bonds, house purchases. Growing up in Eastern Europe, where only housing investment was an option, and unions were abundant, the middle class that sprouted came from those who invested in property and business. Labor union power and wealth was too politically and corruption influenced to be a sustainable source of growth for the country.