Archives
Don’t Blame Robots for Low Wages
Too many great quotes in this article, so apologies in advance …. my bold, spot the theme!
”Technological change is an old story. What’s new is the failure of workers to share in the fruits of that technological change.”
“There is a growing though incomplete consensus among economists that a key factor in wage stagnation has been workers’ declining bargaining power — a decline whose roots are ultimately political.”
“Most obviously, the federal minimum wage, adjusted for inflation, has fallen by a third over the past half century, even as worker productivity has risen 150 percent. That divergence was politics, pure and simple.”
” What made America exceptional was a political environment deeply hostile to labor organizing and friendly toward union-busting employers.”
“American workers can and should be getting a much better deal than they are. And to the extent that they aren’t, the fault lies not in our robots, but in our political leaders.”
Paul Krugman
My Thoughts
Not just the US. Another example of the UK adopting the US position … thankyou Margaret Thatcher.