/lit/ - Literature

>>20446899
>>20446909
Also, if you include things like housing, education, healthcare, and transportation, workers are actually WORSE off today than in past decades. Source is Oren Cass, former economic advisor to Mitt Romney

>>20431514
Bruh, even conservatives recognize median income buys you less today than any time in the past 5 decades

>>18544053
This may result in commodities being cheaper (poor people can now afford multiple large screen TVs), but in regard to actual wealth, like property, it becomes more and more unobtainable for workers. Dildos for everyone, but you can't afford a mortgage and must rent forever like a serf. This is because the price of labor is forever being depressed, it's just that commodities fall in value too, but property, education, healthcare, and all the actual essential components to living a deep, rich life become more and more unaffordable.

>>17540609
NEXT

>>17234776
>suicide rate still climbing
>life expectancy still declining
>wealth gap still growing
>"lol just work harder, you younger generations are just lazy"
It's all so tiresome

>>16836459
I actually found his observation that technological advancement itself is the enemy of the workers to be extremely relevant. It makes sense, all technological advancements are designed to make labor more efficient and lessen the value of labor by making it more abundant. This is wonderful for producing an abundance of cheap throw-away products or even food. It sucks for creating any kind of real middle class.

Take Oren Cass' work for example. Over the past 40 years, there has been the most concentrated technological progress in human history. Yet, the median full time worker is WORSE off because of it. This will absolutely lead to a dystopian hellscape where only those who own capital can make money while those who have nothing but their labor to sell will be continually pressured to sell it for cheaper and cheaper, thus curtailing most pathways to social mobility. Marx's critiques were extremely accurate and get at the core of the natural forces acting upon capital and the channels it will naturally tend toward.

Capital is trending in a distinctly anti-citizen direction. Just look at the average weeks it take to cover household expenses. This is largely due to automation and the globalization of the labor market coupled with anti-competitive practices by large corporations (Amazon selling diapers at a loss to drive diapersdotcom under and then buying them out). This drives down wages, prevents new businesses from emerging, and sabotages social mobility and ability to earn money for the majority of citizens. This will likely end in revolution or unemployment riots at the very least. Read Oren Cass' article for the manhattan-institute if further interested