Amerika

From the halls of 1843 Magazine:

In those decades after the second world war, Keynes seemed to have the better of the argument. As productivity rose across the rich world, hourly wages for typical workers kept rising and hours worked per week kept falling – to the mid-30s, by the 1970s. But then something went wrong. Less-skilled workers found themselves forced to accept ever-smaller pay rises to stay in work. The bargaining power of the typical blue-collar worker eroded as technology and globalisation handed bosses a whole toolkit of ways to squeeze labour costs.

When did both unions and immigration begin their dominance? Oh, right: the 1970s. And the market reacted, by importing more labor and driving out the natives, who had made themselves ludicrously expensive through unions and the resulting lawsuits. The result is that everyone works more.

Enjoy your slavery, morons. In the name of the defense of those who cannot be protected, you brought this on yourselves. Like most things democracy, people paid attention to the trigger pull, not where the gun was pointed, and now that the bullet has landed, things have turned out “less than ideal.” As predicted, but ignored.

Tags: immigration, unions