U.S. Government shuts down.

[kandrathe]

This means that the easiest way to make money is artificial scarcity, also known as market power. Modern corporations have gotten very good at this, through a variety of means: branded products, political lobbying, regulatory arbitrage, and oligopoly.

I would reflect that the consumer also is coerced into artificial demand, and one method is by making credit easy. It is not a new thing though. The original colonists to the US came over on the installment plan. British merchants financed the New World expedition with the colonists agreeing to work without profit for seven years. General Motors Acceptance Corporation began as a way to sell more cars, and also thereby employ more workers. A theoretical win, win, win. The consumer gets the car they want, GM gets a profit, and labour gets employment. It all works until credit is over-extended and the consumer owes more than they can repay. Our current credit crunch, and market fearfulness results in less consumerism, less employment, and a declining GDP. At least getting sucked into over spending is something the informed consumer can avoid, unlike our prior discussion of spending done on our behalf. I'm still convinced that left unchecked, the government will continue to take all they can from those without lobbyists or PAC's. Which makes an entity like AARP in essence a de facto union.

And labour's equivalent weapons, unions and guilds, have suffered from the changing context of globalization, where states can still pass laws to stop inter-firm competition, but are largely powerless to stop inter-labour competition across borders. And so, labour becomes cheaper, and labour share goes down.

On the labor side, we also have artificial scarcity, by creating government, or industry controlled licensure barriers.

I would add in considering globalization, also that labour has "suffered" from the additional costs of regulation, where in those places that are unregulated, less unionized and do not incur these costs, creating attraction for those seeking to drive down the cost of making things, at the expense of workers and consumer safety, and the environment. In that regard, US and European labour is priced out of the global market, since it needs to comply with regulations that do not apply to workers in many parts of South America, SE Asia, or Africa.

Harsh working conditions, unsafe products, and pollution are not things anyone consciously supports. For most of us, the cruelty involved in cocoa, coffee, computer salvage, or clothing manufacture are a third world away. I don't have any easy answers on this either. Now, and for centuries, trade and tariffs are used as a weapon wielded for political purposes. Suffice it to say that if we are to escape the simple formula where industry motivations regarding people are either as consumers, or workers, then if there is consciousness needing to be raised it is that we are industry, and we have a conscience. At least, through our consent of regulation, we show we do care about these things, but through our consumer choices we bow to convenient economic, and societal pressures. And, at times, I fear there is something more sinister underlaying this manipulativeness.

And for DeeBye's elephant in the room;



Yes, I think we might overdo it a bit. Here is another good visual...


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