The problem isn’t capitalism. US has always had capitalism and once we put good protections in it worked great, like post WWII up until like 1990ish. That golden arrow was mainly because there were strong protections for workers that were relevant to the time. A man working minimum wage could live decently and feed his family.
The three factors of production are land, labor, and capital. All three are supposed to have equal seats at the table. But starting somewhere between the Reagan years and 1990s, we started to let capital run the table. Labor took a back seat. And what we have now is the result.
Housing and health care became investments rather than services. Minimum wage didn’t track inflation, didn’t track CPI, and sure as hell didn’t track worker productivity. The federal minimum wage has less buying power today than at any point since the minimum wage was implemented.
And there is a very real trickle down effect, in that if the lowest worker is making $7.25, all other wages adjust based on that. IE, the slightly higher end worker makes $15 or $20 because that’s double or triple the minimum wage. If the lowest worker was making $20, the slightly higher end worker would be making $40 or $60.
The result is that the American people have less buying power at their disposal than they have in a very long time. Significantly less than during those golden years of the latter 1900s. And that is why shit sucks.
Capitalism is not the problem. Unchecked unregulated capitalism is the problem. Regulatory capture is part of that problem. And that’s what we have now in many industries.
Fix that, raise the minimum wage, and stop letting corporations exploit not just workers but the nation as a whole. Then you have some capitalism that works for everybody.
Sound like they have to drop capitalism like everyone else
The problem isn’t capitalism. US has always had capitalism and once we put good protections in it worked great, like post WWII up until like 1990ish. That golden arrow was mainly because there were strong protections for workers that were relevant to the time. A man working minimum wage could live decently and feed his family.
The three factors of production are land, labor, and capital. All three are supposed to have equal seats at the table. But starting somewhere between the Reagan years and 1990s, we started to let capital run the table. Labor took a back seat. And what we have now is the result.
Housing and health care became investments rather than services. Minimum wage didn’t track inflation, didn’t track CPI, and sure as hell didn’t track worker productivity. The federal minimum wage has less buying power today than at any point since the minimum wage was implemented. And there is a very real trickle down effect, in that if the lowest worker is making $7.25, all other wages adjust based on that. IE, the slightly higher end worker makes $15 or $20 because that’s double or triple the minimum wage. If the lowest worker was making $20, the slightly higher end worker would be making $40 or $60.
The result is that the American people have less buying power at their disposal than they have in a very long time. Significantly less than during those golden years of the latter 1900s. And that is why shit sucks.
Capitalism is not the problem. Unchecked unregulated capitalism is the problem. Regulatory capture is part of that problem. And that’s what we have now in many industries.
Fix that, raise the minimum wage, and stop letting corporations exploit not just workers but the nation as a whole. Then you have some capitalism that works for everybody.