Skip to main content

Home/ GAVNet Collaborative Curation/ Group items tagged low-wage

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Bill Fulkerson

Luddites have been getting a bad rap for 200 years. But, turns out, they were right - Q... - 0 views

  •  
    "The truth is that the Luddites were the skilled, middle-class workers of their time. After centuries on more-or-less good terms with merchants who sold their goods, their lives were upended by machines replacing them with low-skilled, low-wage laborers in dismal factories. To ease the transition, the Luddites sought to negotiate conditions similar to those underlying capitalist democracies today: taxes to fund workers' pensions, a minimum wage, and adherence to minimum labor standards."
Bill Fulkerson

Even if you build it, the poor can't come: against supply-side - Mark R Reiff | Aeon Ideas - 0 views

  • Recent history has shown that we can’t be sure that economic expansion alone will solve our wider economic problems. Almost all of the benefits of economic growth during the past 30 years or so have accrued to the rich, and mostly to the super-rich. Real income for most people has been stagnant or even declined. The new jobs that have been created are mostly temporary, low-wage, no-benefit jobs. Permanent, good-wage jobs with benefits have continued to disappear. Rather than giving money to the rich in these circumstances and hoping that it trickles down to the rest of us, as the supply-siders suggest, it would be better to give money to the poor and middle-class, as the Keynesians suggest. The Keynesian approach, after all, has worked many times in the past. Indeed, it’s how the West emerged from the Great Depression. But most importantly, if for some reason it doesn’t work, at least we will have made the right people better off.
Bill Fulkerson

America is Regressing into a Developing Nation for Most People - Evonomics - 0 views

  • In the Lewis model of a dual economy, much of the low-wage sector has little influence over public policy. Check. The high-income sector will keep wages down in the other sector to provide cheap labor for its businesses. Check. Social control is used to keep the low-wage sector from challenging the policies favored by the high-income sector. Mass incarceration – check. The primary goal of the richest members of the high-income sector is to lower taxes. Check. Social and economic mobility is low. Check.
Steve Bosserman

What is the gig economy? - The Washington Post - 0 views

  • The unemployment rate is at a 17-year low, but stagnant wages, chronic underemployment and growing inequality are leading more Americans to take on so-called side hustles. Some want to supplement their incomes. Others are just trying to eke out a living. Nearly 1 in 4 Americans now earn money from the digital “platform economy,” according to the Pew Research Center. Most of that work is for domestic tasks, such as housecleaning and repairs, or driving for companies such as Uber.
  • But labor experts say companies such as Snag Work could set a dangerous precedent. Employers are already wary of hiring full-time employees because of overtime and health-care costs, they say, and having a pool of potential gig workers at the ready could make matters worse for those seeking the stability, benefits and protections that come with full-time work.
Steve Bosserman

It wasn't just hate. Fascism offered robust social welfare | Aeon Ideas - 0 views

  • The origins of fascism lay in a promise to protect people. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a rush of globalisation destroyed communities, professions and cultural norms while generating a wave of immigration. Right-wing nationalist movements promising to protect people from the pernicious influence of foreigners and markets arose, and frightened, disoriented and displaced people responded. These early fascist movements disrupted political life in some countries, but they percolated along at a relatively low simmer until the Second World War.
  • After coming to power, the Italian fascists created recreational circles, student and youth groups, sports and excursion activities. These organisations all furthered the fascists’ goals of fostering a truly national community. The desire to strengthen (a fascist) national identity also compelled the regime to extraordinary cultural measures. They promoted striking public architecture, art exhibitions, and film and radio productions. The regime intervened extensively in the economy. As one fascist put it: ‘There cannot be any single economic interests which are above the general economic interests of the state, no individual, economic initiatives which do not fall under the supervision and regulation of the state, no relationships of the various classes of the nation which are not the concern of the state.’
  • When, in January 1933, Hitler became chancellor, the Nazis quickly began work-creation and infrastructure programmes. They exhorted business to take on workers, and doled out credit. Germany’s economy rebounded and unemployment figures improved dramatically: German unemployment fell from almost 6 million in early 1933 to 2.4 million by the end of 1934; by 1938, Germany essentially enjoyed full employment. By the end of the 1930s, the government was controlling decisions about economic production, investment, wages and prices. Public spending was growing spectacularly.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • There can be no question that violence and racism were essential traits of fascism. But for most Italians, Germans and other European fascists, the appeal was based not on racism, much less ethnic cleansing, but on the fascists’ ability to respond effectively to crises of capitalism when other political actors were not. Fascists insisted that states could and should control capitalism, that the state should and could promote social welfare, and that national communities needed to be cultivated. The fascist solution ultimately was, of course, worse than the problem. In response to the horror of fascism, in part, New Deal Democrats in the United States, and social democratic parties in Europe, also moved to re-negotiate the social contract. They promised citizens that they would control capitalism and provide social welfare policies and undertake other measures to strengthen national solidarity – but without the loss of freedom and democracy that fascism entailed.
1 - 10 of 10
Showing 20 items per page