I hope the reporter at the wsj who wrote this stuff gets laid off so he can feel good about helping his corporate masters get just a bit richer....

The shit really hits the fan when business picks up again because then you not only have to do laid off Tom's job along with your own, you must now do all the work you and Tom used to do that fell off but now has came back.

Oh wait, maybe they'll hire Tom back. Nah!

The spring 1968 uprising in Czeckoslovakia called for "Socialism with a human face" and, as we know, was seen as a threat to Soviet power and thus brutally put down.

I have never forgotten that slogan and have long thought that we should modify it for ourselves and demand in America: "Capitalism with a human face." Unless and until that happens the perverse logic and ugliness of capitalism's love of money over humanity will continue to rule over the lives of us all and make the world a less livable, harsher place to exist for workers of all sorts.

Without modification (and certainly more than we presently have)capitalism is simply an ugly business no matter how you look at it. This entry in the WSJ is just one more example.

Three options exist for workers, today and forever.

They can organize to protect their interests, or they can work for themselves. If they can't do those things, then they should learn to make the best of what management presents them, because that is all they can ever expect.

Nathan, Haven't commented to anything you wrote before, but just want to say it is encouraging to see a consistent voice supporting workers rights.

I think this article makes the point as clearly as can be said that labor is just another commodity in the market. Hmm, now who said that?

Presidente comments :

This is because "middle class workers" (put in quotes because that's a term of art in this argument, and doesn't mean middle class people at all, but rather well paid unskilled labor)

That is one of the master strokes of capitalist propaganda -- convincing workers that they are "middle class" and as we all know the middle class does not organize itself into such plebian groups as 'unions'. It is too bad that Democrats have accepted this frame as well. The reason for that is the other capitalist propaganda triumph that banished open discussion of class warfare or when, it cannot be avoided, to do so in euphemism and denying what is the underlying tension.

The WSJ logic is hard to sustain.

If you, as the best widgit maker and everything else in the world remains the same, reduce your workforce by 20%, increase productivity 10% (a big gain), pay and prices stays the same, you've still reduced the economy by 12% of your previous gross output. And your return on invested capital has probably dropped.

If you turned some of that gain into lower prices to retain market share, you just reduced the gross economy soe more and passed pressure on to the next best widgit maker to make the same "improvements". I.e. further economy contraction.

It's the the same conflict/conundrum signatured by Keynes of the consumer saving rather than spending in a depression. Or the bank holding money rather than lending.

And that's where we are right now.

How typical of the WSJ to point that out without seeing the irony.

Honestly, almost all republicans have been inoculated against irony. They can't see it when it runs them down like a TGV -- oh, right! We don't have any of those -- or an unfathomable depression.

Yeah, they didn't see that coming in 1930 either.

The title of Nathan's very important post has me feeling more than a little sarcastic.

Americans have always worked more hours and taken shorter vacations than many around the world, but these new trends may be headed toward plain old servitude.

What next? Forget those visionary American dreams of the past! Those old dreams merely created a vibrant land of opportunity where hard work paid off, prosperity was shared, innovation flourished and citizens had a shot at a decent quality of life. Every good American must now embody the corporate media's new definition of an honorable “hard-working” servant to corporate profits or else hang his head in shame!

Where does it lead when small groups hoard the profits, lift all the tax money for dubious purposes and then force workers to do the heavy lifting to make up for their unsustainable actions and risk taking?

Forget investing in advanced education; it will pay little return for most where this train is headed! Just get busy working three jobs to survive and so you are able to pass the same onto your children! That's the new American way. Forget missions to the moon, opportunities and incentives for innovation as we've got Walmart's to build, workers to exploit, unnecessary wars to fund, and bailouts and subsidies to deliver.

Don't ask what's wrong with this picture as American values of fairness (values that that once made America a powerful nation and great inspiration to people the world over) disappear right before your eyes.

Seriously. Corporations should share the pain of the bad times and the prosperity of the good—especially when those bad times were driven by corporate and government policy. My management consulting experience informs me that those who may think they can profit by endless exploitation of workers are just too short-sighted to see the losses on their own horizon.

And never to forget that America was founded by people who risked their lives and property to dig themselves and the first Americans out of the gutter of servitude to a King. And after the King was ancient history, African American leaders and the black and white Americans who supported them did the same to dig slaves out of that much worse gutter of servitude. Let's continue to go forward and not backwards. Let's start voting in new leaders when the ones in office do not deliver policies that work for all Americans. .

"...a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."
-James Madison

So no doubt all those more-productive workers will be paid more, right? What the WSJ reporter is writing about is not good, it's a classic case of Keynes on liquidity preference: making more products with fewer people is a good thing in an expanding economy, but actually makes a shrinking economy worse.