collective bargaining

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The Next Shift: The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America by Gabriel Winant

affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, anti-communist, antiwork, blue-collar work, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, classic study, clean water, collective bargaining, company town, coronavirus, COVID-19, creative destruction, deindustrialization, desegregation, deskilling, emotional labour, employer provided health coverage, Erik Brynjolfsson, Ford paid five dollars a day, full employment, future of work, ghettoisation, independent contractor, invisible hand, Kitchen Debate, labor-force participation, longitudinal study, low skilled workers, mandatory minimum, manufacturing employment, mass incarceration, MITM: man-in-the-middle, moral hazard, new economy, New Urbanism, obamacare, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, pink-collar, post-industrial society, post-work, postindustrial economy, price stability, RAND corporation, Ronald Reagan, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, the built environment, union organizing, upwardly mobile, urban renewal, vertical integration, War on Poverty, white flight, Wolfgang Streeck, women in the workforce, work culture , working poor

Labor became a central pillar of the Democratic Party coalition, gained legal recognition, and successfully organized the mass production industries at the economy’s core, bringing about unprecedented working-class unity across lines of race, ethnicity, and skill. In the aftermath of the strike wave of 1934, Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), seeking to reestablish stability in industrial relations by facilitating collective bargaining through the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).15 When the Supreme Court constitutionalized collective bargaining in 1937, it was in a steel industry case from western Pennsylvania: National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation. The Court found that the internal operations of a vertically integrated firm like Jones & Laughlin affected and constituted interstate commerce, thus rendering constitutional the federal government’s regulation of the corporation’s labor relations.

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But the dynamic of the previous fifteen years, in which labor had stood at the vanguard of a broad-based democratic political movement of the working class at large, ceased. Unions became more and more confined to a parochial economic project, advancing the narrow interests of their own memberships. Collective bargaining had never encompassed everyone, but from 1950 onward, it increasingly formed only insulated pools of economic security—no longer an advancing tide.22 This insulation shaped the welfare state and the longer development of America’s political economy profoundly. Collective Bargaining and the Divided Welfare State In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the New Deal was not defeated and rolled back but rather contained and compromised.

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These forms of security rested upon collective employment relationships conducted under public supervision, often eased with public subsidy and transacted through nonprofit third parties.26 Indeed, in no case was the welfare state’s tiered dynamic clearer than in health care, where the emergence of the New Deal state and its penetration of industry through collective bargaining led to the proliferation of third-party nonprofit health insurance and eventually to the massive expansion of private, nonprofit hospitals. When, as in the case of Medicare, the public sector stepped in more aggressively, it did so as a consequence of the effects of the public-private regime: the rise of collectively bargained health insurance drove up the price of health care in the 1950s, pushing it out of reach for the elderly, who under this welfare state’s moral order were deserving subjects—leading to political demand for health insurance entitlements for retirees and, in second-class status, the poor.27 Even direct public intervention, in other words, positioned the state as a consumer rather than supplier of health care, rounding out the uneven and divided welfare state rather than intruding on it.

No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age by Jane F. McAlevey

"RICO laws" OR "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations", affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Albert Einstein, anti-communist, antiwork, call centre, clean water, collective bargaining, emotional labour, feminist movement, gentrification, hiring and firing, immigration reform, independent contractor, informal economy, Mark Zuckerberg, mass incarceration, Naomi Klein, new economy, no-fly zone, Occupy movement, precariat, Right to Buy, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, single-payer health, The Chicago School, union organizing, Upton Sinclair, vertical integration, women in the workforce

If the union is truly an organization of the workers, why wouldn’t any worker be invited to at least observe his or her own contract negotiations? Three questions can determine whether or not the union is a third party in the renegotiation of a collective bargaining agreement: Does the process involve every worker? Are negotiations fully transparent? Can any worker attend? In the New Labor mobilizing model, most collective bargaining is handled in top-down, staff-only negotiations with employers. If workers are present, there will typically be very few, say between five and ten, no matter how many thousands of workers are involved. Those chosen few are not expected, or even allowed, to speak during the negotiations.

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They began on page 14, starting with a: The employer shall cease and desist from “threatening employees with plant closure if they select the Union as their collective bargaining agent,” and going all the way through to ee: “In any other manner interfering with, restraining, or coercing its employees in the exercise of their rights.” In particular, x through aa offer sobering insights into and evidence of what the employees had faced in the 1997 election: the company is to “cease and desist from” x Threating employees that wages would be frozen if the Union were elected as the collective bargaining representative; y Assaulting employees in retaliation for their union activities.

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See also Local 775 homecare and nursing home unionization in, 78–84, 92, 94t, 95–100, 209, 220n15 wages in, 83–84, 92, 94t, 95, 96, 143–44, 178, 220n36 What Unions No Longer Do (Rosenfeld), 68, 219n65 whole worker organizing, 19, 23, 28 bottom-up power structure in, 69–70 campaign model for, 69f CIO approach with, 58–70 community engagement in, 58–60, 69–70, 70f, 211 community-labor alliances compared to, 67t, 211 concession and disruption costs in, 61–65, 64t, 67t employers and, 67–68 in faith-based environments, 58, 60, 68 Who Rules America (Domhoff), 3 Williams, Brendan, 98 Winfrey, Oprah, 171–72, 173 Wisconsin, 200, 210 women, 30 actors of color, 20, 27, 49, 86, 191, 199, 211 Alinsky’s view of, 46 in MRNY membership, 230n29 strikes dominated by, 20, 21t Woodruff, Tom, 76, 174 worker agency in CIO model, 59–60, 92 in decision-making, 64–65, 74 in 1199NE model, 47, 58, 87–88, 92, 98 in Local 775, 82, 83–84, 98 in organizing model, 206–7 in private sector, 33–34 in Smithfield Foods campaign, 154–66, 174–75, 202 in SMOs compared to unions, 196–97 in strategic and “ground war” campaign, 153, 226n20 structure tests and, 39 worker benefits, 93t–94t, 95, 144 workers, 2. See also homecare workers; whole worker organizing into actors, 6, 23, 56 aligning across racial barriers, 165, 167–68 car wash, 189–91, 230n24 in CIO-style campaigns, 53, 56, 90–92 collective bargaining equality for, 57–58 collective bargaining rights of, 196, 210 community relationship of, in health care, 28, 202–5 confidence of, with Smithfield Foods unionization win, 176–78 in corporate campaign, 53, 66–68 corporate class dividing public and, 21 corporate power understanding of, 29 demobilization of, by corporate class, 199–201 dock, 32–33, 38 engagement of, in struggle, 24, 56, 90–92, 201, 204, 205 global competition for, 7 grocery store, 185–86 low-wage, 24, 64t, 65, 178, 182, 186, 190, 230n14 majority building by, 92 majority petitions by, 35, 35f, 37 MRNY justice campaigns for, 183–87, 189–91, 195–96 in New Labor model, 18–19, 20, 51, 91–92, 209–10 organic leader identification by, 34 in power structure analysis, 53, 207–8 professional staff replacing, 19, 40, 208–9 strike significance for, 20, 29, 134, 142, 201–2, 206 three compared to two side approach with employers and, 96–100 turnover of, and union defeats, 158 union relationship with, 57 working class, 25 corporate class strategies to demobilize, 199–201 organic leaders from, 12 self-blame created for, 199, 201 strikes importance for, 20, 29 workplace environments, 60 conditions of, 145–46, 157 exit threat in, 202–3, 207, 211 New Labor’s move from, 18 structure-based organizing in, 12–13 World War II, 19, 38, 39, 136 Zeitlin, Maurice, 31, 32

Midnight in Vehicle City: General Motors, Flint, and the Strike That Created the Middle Class by Edward McClelland

collective bargaining, company town, coronavirus, COVID-19, Ford Model T, Henry Ford's grandson gave labor union leader Walter Reuther a tour of the company’s new, automated factory…, Jeff Bezos, minimum wage unemployment, New Urbanism, Ronald Reagan, strikebreaker, Ted Nelson, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, union organizing, Upton Sinclair

To Martin this is just more evidence that GM has no intention of abiding by the terms of the Wagner Act. At CIO headquarters in Washington, John L. Lewis feels the same way. Knudsen’s response, he says, is “not collective bargaining, but simply an evasion of the responsibilities of General Motors.” After Knudsen’s rebuff, the union announces a meeting of local officials from ten cities in Flint on January 3, “for the purpose of approving recommendations of the general offices concerning collective bargaining in General Motors.” But before that meeting can happen, the sit-down strike starts. CHAPTER 3 “THIS IS WHERE THE FIGHT BEGINS” THE GREAT FLINT SIT-DOWN STRIKE actually begins in Cleveland.

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Knudsen also reminds Martin that a meeting had been scheduled between Fisher One plant managers and union representatives for January 4, the first Monday of the new year. That’s not going to take place, now that the sit-down is on. “Sit-downs are strikes,” he writes. “Such strikers are clearly trespassers and violators of the law of the land. “We cannot have bona fide collective bargaining with sit-down strikers in illegal possession of plants. Collective bargaining cannot be justified if one party having seized the plant, holds a gun at the other party’s head . . . No one can afford to bargain with sitdown strikers or with their representatives until the plants are cleared.” As the owner of Fisher One and Fisher Two, GM feels it has the law on its side.

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That night, he addresses a packed meeting at the Pengelly Building attended by men and their families who have quickly gotten over any disappointment over the strike’s continuing and now feel a determination to win, however long that will take. “It is impossible to have more than one collective bargaining agency determining wages and working conditions of employees in the same group,” Martin tells the crowd. “One part of an assembly line cannot be on a six-hour day while an adjoining part of the line or a scattering of workers along the line is on an eight-hour day. There is no feasible method of collective bargaining other than through unified representation. That being true, to say the corporation will not recognize any union to be the sole bargaining agency is in fact to say, ‘We refuse to bargain with our employees altogether.’”

Economic Dignity by Gene Sperling

active measures, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, antiwork, autism spectrum disorder, autonomous vehicles, basic income, behavioural economics, benefit corporation, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, Cass Sunstein, collective bargaining, company town, corporate governance, cotton gin, David Brooks, desegregation, Detroit bankruptcy, disinformation, Donald Trump, Double Irish / Dutch Sandwich, driverless car, Elon Musk, employer provided health coverage, Erik Brynjolfsson, Ferguson, Missouri, fulfillment center, full employment, gender pay gap, ghettoisation, gig economy, Gini coefficient, green new deal, guest worker program, Gunnar Myrdal, housing crisis, Ida Tarbell, income inequality, independent contractor, invisible hand, job automation, job satisfaction, labor-force participation, late fees, liberal world order, longitudinal study, low skilled workers, Lyft, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, mass incarceration, mental accounting, meta-analysis, minimum wage unemployment, obamacare, offshore financial centre, open immigration, payday loans, Phillips curve, price discrimination, profit motive, race to the bottom, RAND corporation, randomized controlled trial, Richard Thaler, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, shareholder value, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, single-payer health, speech recognition, stock buybacks, subprime mortgage crisis, tech worker, TED Talk, The Chicago School, The Future of Employment, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Toyota Production System, traffic fines, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, union organizing, universal basic income, W. E. B. Du Bois, War on Poverty, warehouse robotics, working poor, young professional, zero-sum game

Domestic workers by definition work in isolation behind closed doors in private homes, and farmworkers face their own unique challenges that make it hard to execute collective bargaining. Many of these workers believe they have few labor market options and little or no recourse to wage theft, on-the-job injuries, and verbal, sexual, and racial harassment. Both farmworkers and domestic workers were excluded from critical New Deal legislation. These exclusionary laws included the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) of 1935, which guaranteed the right to form a union and to collective bargaining; the Social Security Act of 1935, which established not just an old-age pension but unemployment insurance and workers’ compensation; and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which enacted protections such as overtime rules, minimum wage, and limits on child labor.

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Former USW president Leo Gerard described these tactics, including firing the leader of the organizing drive, as “daily, mandatory captive audience meetings, designed to coerce workers into voting against union representation,” and a series of additional actions that “violate the intent of the NLRA, which was to encourage collective bargaining, not hinder it.”48 We must repair the damage done to traditional collective bargaining. At the same time, we should seek out new options for workers to bond together—including those who have been excluded from the benefits of unionization for too long. INDEPENDENT CONTRACTORS In 1914, the Lehigh Valley Coal Company claimed that it was “not in the business of coal mining at all” but merely gave miners access to its mines and then bought coal from those miners.

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The practice of franchising has made it nearly impossible for fast-food workers to take advantage of traditional collective bargaining. Under the NLRA, if a majority of workers within a unit designate a union to bargain on their behalf, that union represents all employees within that unit. However, in the fast-food case, because an individual franchise or small number of locations are typically established as separate corporate organizations, workers are considered employees of the individual franchise (rather than the corporation itself) and therefore would have to organize at the franchise level to gain collective bargaining rights.54 This kind of dispersion of workers makes it nearly impossible to organize through traditional routes, especially when employees turn over frequently, as they do in the fast-food industry.

The Economics of Belonging: A Radical Plan to Win Back the Left Behind and Achieve Prosperity for All by Martin Sandbu

air traffic controllers' union, Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, autonomous vehicles, balance sheet recession, bank run, banking crisis, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, Boris Johnson, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, business cycle, call centre, capital controls, carbon footprint, carbon tax, Carmen Reinhart, centre right, collective bargaining, company town, debt deflation, deindustrialization, deskilling, Diane Coyle, Donald Trump, Edward Glaeser, eurozone crisis, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial engineering, financial intermediation, full employment, future of work, gig economy, Gini coefficient, green new deal, hiring and firing, income inequality, income per capita, industrial robot, intangible asset, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Kenneth Rogoff, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, labour market flexibility, liquidity trap, longitudinal study, low interest rates, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, Martin Wolf, meta-analysis, mini-job, Money creation, mortgage debt, new economy, offshore financial centre, oil shock, open economy, pattern recognition, pink-collar, precariat, public intellectual, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, Richard Florida, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, secular stagnation, social intelligence, TaskRabbit, total factor productivity, universal basic income, very high income, winner-take-all economy, working poor

Where and from whom tax is levied has failed to keep up with the changing market distribution of wealth, let alone been used as a countervailing force. Next, consider government support for the role of collective bargaining to shape the wage structure and the wage-profit split. In some countries this has been preserved, notably in Scandinavia, where collective bargaining supports a collaborative relationship between employers and employees that has contributed to easing the adjustment to technological change. Elsewhere, however, collective bargaining has been eroded by governments sometimes deliberately acting to weaken unions. The iconic case comes from the first year of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, when he refused to accommodate demands by the air traffic controllers.

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Sometimes, that may involve creating alternatives for unions rather than strengthening them. There are a number of policy tools that can ensure this. Administrative extension of collective bargaining. Where unions have declined in reach but still play a constructive function, governments can widen the effect of union-employer bargaining beyond the scope of union members. Through legislation or executive decrees, terms agreed to in collective bargaining in one part of a sector can be made to apply to the sector as a whole, in effect making the union give voice not just to its own members but to all those in a similar situation.

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A case in point is the tightening of EU rules on “posted workers”—those working outside the country where they are formally employed—to make host-country rules kick in sooner and more comprehensively. Another example is when Norway resorted to administrative extensions of collective bargaining outcomes in sectors with a lot of migrant workers. This established sectoral minimum wages in all but name in a country where this was traditionally left to collective bargaining. In finance, too, it is possible to regulate in such a way that capital flows from other countries do not escape the strictures imposed on domestic capital, without putting barriers in the way of cross-border money.

The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger by Marc Levinson

air freight, anti-communist, barriers to entry, Bay Area Rapid Transit, British Empire, business cycle, call centre, collective bargaining, conceptual framework, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, deskilling, Edward Glaeser, Erik Brynjolfsson, flag carrier, full employment, global supply chain, intermodal, Isaac Newton, job automation, Jones Act, knowledge economy, Malcom McLean invented shipping containers, manufacturing employment, Network effects, New Economic Geography, new economy, oil shock, Panamax, Port of Oakland, post-Panamax, Productivity paradox, refrigerator car, Robert Solow, South China Sea, trade route, vertical integration, Works Progress Administration, Yom Kippur War, zero-sum game

Comment about Bridges is from Roger, “A Liberal Journalist,” p. 187. 22. For more on these talks, see Fairley, Facing Mechanization, pp. 103–104; Hartman, Collective Bargaining, pp. 90–94; Larrowe, Harry Bridges, pp. 352–353. The full text of the ILA proposal is reprinted in Fairley, Facing Mechanization, p. 80. 23. Fairley, Facing Mechanization, pp. 122–129; Hartman, Collective Bargaining, pp. 96–97; Winter, “Thirty Years of Collective Bargaining,” chap. 5. Savings per hour calculated from data in Hartman, Collective Bargaining, p. 123. 24. Fairley, Facing Mechanization, pp. 132–133, and Germain Bulcke, “Longshore Leader and ILWU-Pacific Maritime Association Arbitrator,” interview by Estolv Ethan Ward, (Berkeley, 1984), p. 66. 25.

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The split among PMA members is detailed in Fairley, Facing Mechanization, p. 125, and Winter, “Thirty Years of Collective Bargaining,” chap. 5. Hartman, Collective Bargaining, pp. 99–100, discusses opposition within the ILWU. Nearly one-third of San Francisco longshoremen were over age fifty-four, and only 11 percent were younger than thirty-five. See Robert W. Cherny, “Longshoremen of San Francisco Bay, 1849–1960,” in Da-vies et al., Dock Workers, 1:137. 27. Hartman, Collective Bargaining, pp. 164–66. 28. Ibid., pp. 124–44 and 272–279; Finlay, Work on the Waterfront, p. 65. 29. Hartman quotation, Collective Bargaining, p. 150; on “Bridges loads,” see Larrowe, Harry Bridges, p. 356. 30.

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The special importance of work rules to unions in an industry that relies on casual labor is emphasized by Hartman, Collective Bargaining, p. 41. For examples of the many rules in West Coast ports, see Hartman, Collective Bargaining, pp. 46–72, and Lincoln Fairley, Facing Mechanization: The West Coast Longshore Plan (Los Angeles, 1979), pp.16–17. 11. “Working Class Leader in the ILWU, 1935–1977,” interview with Estolv Ethan Ward, 1978 (Berkeley, 1980), p. 803. 12. J. Paul St. Sure, “Some Comments on Employer Organizations and Collective Bargaining in Northern California since 1934” (Berkeley, 1957), pp. 598–609. 13. Louis Goldblatt, “Working Class Leader in the ILWU, 1935–1977,” interviews by Estolv Ethan Ward (Berkeley, 1977), p. 784; Clark Kerr and Lloyd Fisher, “Conflict on the Waterfront,” Atlantic 183, no. 3, (1949): 17. 14.

The Streets Were Paved With Gold by Ken Auletta

benefit corporation, British Empire, business climate, business logic, clean water, collective bargaining, full employment, Gunnar Myrdal, guns versus butter model, hiring and firing, invisible hand, Jane Jacobs, job satisfaction, Joseph Schumpeter, Lewis Mumford, military-industrial complex, mortgage debt, Norman Mailer, North Sea oil, offshore financial centre, Parkinson's law, Ponzi scheme, price stability, profit motive, Ralph Nader, RAND corporation, rent control, rent stabilization, Ronald Reagan, social contagion, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, union organizing, Upton Sinclair, upwardly mobile, urban decay, urban renewal, War on Poverty, working-age population

In addition to their ability to paralyze the city with a strike, as the transit union proved in 1966 and the bridge tenders in 1971, over the years the unions gained management powers and became partners in the city’s governance. Executive Order No. 52, signed by Mayor Lindsay on September 29, 1967, allowed such previous management prerogatives as “workload and manning” to be placed on the collective bargaining table. Everything became negotiable. “Collective bargaining has become a means not only for determining the wages and conditions of employment of public employees,” writes former city Personnel Director Sol Hoberman, “but also for modifying the nature of public service and the role, authority and responsibilities of the Mayor, the City Council, and agency heads.”

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.… Issue to be raised with Office of Labor Relations.” Asked whether he had raised this issue, Labor Relations Commissioner Russo replied, “One of the things labor leaders and their people argue is that at the productivity table we should not try to get back their benefits. That, they say, must be reserved for collective bargaining. Yet when we bring it up at collective bargaining, they tell us, ‘Go to hell!’ ” Not to press that issue was a political decision, as Beame’s stance when seeking reelection in 1977 was political. Like most incumbents, Beame boasted of the city’s accomplishments, downplaying its problems. He said the city had “turned the corner” because he had “made the tough decisions.”

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His reports were quarantined, as was the truckload of reform proposals gathering dust in the Municipal Library. Trying to change the system, wails Frucher, “is like pushing a boulder up a hill.” The Chairman of the U.S. Civil Service Commission, Alan Campbell, knows the feeling: “I’m not sure one can make it a sexy issue.” Collective Bargaining The Civil Service is a toothless tiger compared to the collective bargaining system. “The City’s capacity to act as an arm’s length employer in bargaining with the municipal unions is not what it should be,” mildly concluded the state Charter Revision Commission. The Management Advisory Board put it another way: “A Mayor’s ability to relate to municipal unions as chief manager of the City is sharply limited by his need to relate to them as an elected official.”

The New Class War: Saving Democracy From the Metropolitan Elite by Michael Lind

"World Economic Forum" Davos, affirmative action, anti-communist, basic income, Bernie Sanders, Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, business cycle, Cambridge Analytica, capital controls, Cass Sunstein, central bank independence, centre right, collective bargaining, commoditize, corporate governance, cotton gin, crony capitalism, deindustrialization, disinformation, Doha Development Round, Donald Trump, Edward Snowden, export processing zone, fake news, future of work, gentrification, global supply chain, guest worker program, Haight Ashbury, illegal immigration, immigration reform, independent contractor, invisible hand, Jeremy Corbyn, knowledge economy, Les Trente Glorieuses, liberal world order, low skilled workers, low-wage service sector, manufacturing employment, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, means of production, Michael Milken, moral panic, Nate Silver, new economy, offshore financial centre, oil shock, open borders, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, purchasing power parity, Ralph Nader, regulatory arbitrage, rent-seeking, Richard Florida, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, Silicon Valley, SoftBank, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, Timothy McVeigh, trade liberalization, union organizing, universal basic income, upwardly mobile, WikiLeaks, Wolfgang Streeck, working poor

The tripartite approach also rejects excessive government micromanagement of minimum wages and working conditions using one-size-fits-all rules. Some minimum standards are necessary, but many decisions should be left to collective bargaining among organized capital and organized labor, brokered by national governments. Tripartite institutions that enable business-labor negotiations over wages, working conditions, and investment decisions have always come in different forms that are appropriate in different sectors. The kind of collective bargaining most familiar to Americans, and most despised by managers, not without justification, is “enterprise bargaining”—the unionization of particular companies or particular work sites, one by one, in an adversarial and disruptive process.

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Instead of the sectoral minimum wages and working hours and pensions that were to have been agreed on in each industry by business and labor and ratified by the NRA, the federal government directly imposed a one-size-fits-all national minimum wage and eight-hour day in 1938, in addition to the federal Social Security program that was enacted earlier in 1935. The Wagner Act of 1935 turned section 7(a) of the National Industrial Recovery Act into the statute that, as amended, governs collective bargaining in the United States to this day. * * * — DURING WORLD WAR II, many Western governments promised their soldiers and workers a better life after the Axis alliance of National Socialist Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan was defeated. In Britain the Beveridge Report, calling for a massive expansion of welfare services for the working class, was published in November 1942 and helped to inspire the postwar National Health Service.

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But the unregulated labor market is partly replaced by a state-brokered system of bargaining over wages and working conditions among employers or employer associations and independent trade unions or other labor organizations.16 Elaborate forms of national sectoral bargaining among employers and labor unions were created in postwar Sweden and Austria. In the Federal Republic of Germany, collective bargaining was supplemented by codetermination, the practice of having union representatives on the boards of large corporations. In France, union membership has always been relatively low, but the results of employer-union bargaining have covered great numbers of workers. One study notes: “The shadows of Fascism and/or foreign threat were decisive or at least significant in all the most successful and enduring peace settlements.”17 The labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein points out: “Building upon the framework established by the National War Labor Board, the big industrial unions settled into a postwar collective-bargaining routine that increased real weekly wages some 50% in the next two decades and greatly expanded their fringe benefit welfare packages.”18 Following the Treaty of Detroit in 1950—a five-year contract negotiated by the United Auto Workers with General Motors—and similar deals, the US had a de facto system of democratic corporatism in its concentrated manufacturing sector, which by means of “pattern bargaining” informally set standards for wages and benefits in many nonunionized sectors.

The Fissured Workplace by David Weil

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", accounting loophole / creative accounting, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, banking crisis, barriers to entry, behavioural economics, business cycle, business process, buy and hold, call centre, Carmen Reinhart, Cass Sunstein, Clayton Christensen, clean water, collective bargaining, commoditize, company town, corporate governance, corporate raider, Corrections Corporation of America, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, declining real wages, employer provided health coverage, Frank Levy and Richard Murnane: The New Division of Labor, George Akerlof, global supply chain, global value chain, hiring and firing, income inequality, independent contractor, information asymmetry, intermodal, inventory management, Jane Jacobs, Kenneth Rogoff, law of one price, long term incentive plan, loss aversion, low skilled workers, minimum wage unemployment, moral hazard, Network effects, new economy, occupational segregation, Paul Samuelson, performance metric, pre–internet, price discrimination, principal–agent problem, Rana Plaza, Richard Florida, Richard Thaler, Ronald Coase, seminal paper, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, statistical model, Steve Jobs, supply-chain management, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Nature of the Firm, transaction costs, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, ultimatum game, union organizing, vertical integration, women in the workforce, yield management

Unionized workplaces in traditional manufacturing solved this problem through collectively bargained deals that linked these grades—often providing for upward ratcheting of the whole wage system (leaving relative wages intact) over time. The collectively bargained contract creates a transparent set of expectations of what is fair (in part because it reflects the preferences of the workforce, at least as represented by the union’s negotiating committee). Large nonunion workplaces also must accommodate the demands of vertical equity in setting compensation policies, even though unfettered by collective bargaining. Higher wages in part reflect an effort to avoid unionization, but also to avoid the kind of internal frictions described above.26 In his studies of wage policies, Bewley also found that nonunion executives justified formal internal pay structures on the basis of equity.27 Although they acknowledged that differences in pay between grades proved useful as incentives, 69% of the businesses interviewed cited “internal equity, internal harmony, fairness, and good morale” as the principal justification.28 A repercussion of the need to satisfy vertical equity demand is that a large employer might end up paying workers at lower ends of the wage system a higher wage than it might prefer in order to preserve internal labor market peace.

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Unions also offer individual workers assistance in the exercise of their rights. This may result from the operation of committees established under collective bargaining, as is common in safety and health, or via the help of union staff who can trigger inspections, oversee pension fund investments, or help members file unemployment claims. Most importantly, unions can substantially reduce the costs associated with potential employer discrimination by helping affected employees use antidiscrimination provisions of the labor policies and providing this protection via collective bargaining agreements regulating dismissals. There is now over two decades of evidence demonstrating that workers are more likely to exercise rights given the presence of a labor union.

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To help clarify this vague definition, courts apply an economic realities test to evaluate the particular employment situation surrounding a worker and an employer. This potentially gives the agency responsible for enforcement the latitude to adjust to changing employment conditions on the ground.13 The National Labor Relations Act, the federal statute governing union organizing and collective bargaining, also uses an economic reality test for defining employment. However, a Supreme Court decision in 1944 holding that boys who sold newspapers on the street on commission were in fact Hearst employees despite the company’s contention that they were independent contractors led enraged conservatives in Congress to amend the National Labor Relations Act in 1947 to specifically exempt independent contractors.14 This has led historically to very narrow readings of coverage and application of the act.

The Gig Economy: A Critical Introduction by Jamie Woodcock, Mark Graham

Airbnb, algorithmic management, Amazon Mechanical Turk, autonomous vehicles, barriers to entry, British Empire, business process, business process outsourcing, Californian Ideology, call centre, collective bargaining, commoditize, corporate social responsibility, crowdsourcing, data science, David Graeber, deindustrialization, Didi Chuxing, digital divide, disintermediation, emotional labour, en.wikipedia.org, full employment, future of work, gamification, gender pay gap, gig economy, global value chain, Greyball, independent contractor, informal economy, information asymmetry, inventory management, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, job automation, knowledge economy, low interest rates, Lyft, mass immigration, means of production, Network effects, new economy, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, planetary scale, precariat, rent-seeking, RFID, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, self-driving car, sentiment analysis, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, TaskRabbit, The Future of Employment, transaction costs, Travis Kalanick, two-sided market, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, union organizing, women in the workforce, working poor, young professional

Three significant dimensions of policy can be identified: a strategy of de-regulation of labour markets and promotion of a low wage, low skill economy as a means of attracting inward investment; competitive tendering and internal markets in the public sector; and the sustained legislative assault on union organisation, employment rights and collective bargaining. This long period of change has shaped the current state of the employment relationship. In particular, the growth of the service industries since the 1970s has seen another phase in which workers have to sell their labour power without much ability to collectively bargain over the terms. At the same time, the labour market was ‘“deregulated” and labour made more “flexible”’, as part of a political project to undermine workers’ rights, restoring ‘management’s “right to manage”’ (Munke, 2005: 63).

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The majority of precarious workers are non-unionized and ‘have been marginalized’ (Pollert and Charlwood, 2009: 357), whether through gender, race or migration status. Therefore, those workers who find themselves in low paid ‘non-standard’ work are often not covered by any of the ‘three regulatory regimes – collective bargaining, employment protection rights, and the national insurance system’ (Fredman, 2003: 308). For example, migrant cleaners across London are often not covered by any of these regulatory regimes (Woodcock, 2014b). In the case of migrant cleaners, the gendered and racialized relationships combine to create a deeply exploitative workplace.

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This does mean that many workers miss the protection of institutional forms of worker power. In most of the gig economy – despite some exceptions that we will discuss later in the book – there are no active trade unions. This means that management are more likely to act unilaterally, without the checks of collective bargaining or negotiation. Globalization and outsourcing The final precondition that has deeply shaped the gig economy in its current form is a combination of political economy and technology: the effects of globalization and outsourcing. This is a development and intensification of the outsourcing of call centres from high-income countries to low- and middle-income countries, for example, from the UK to India (Taylor and Bain, 2005).

Rewriting the Rules of the European Economy: An Agenda for Growth and Shared Prosperity by Joseph E. Stiglitz

"World Economic Forum" Davos, accelerated depreciation, Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, balance sheet recession, bank run, banking crisis, barriers to entry, Basel III, basic income, behavioural economics, benefit corporation, Berlin Wall, bilateral investment treaty, business cycle, business process, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon tax, central bank independence, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collective bargaining, corporate governance, corporate raider, corporate social responsibility, creative destruction, credit crunch, deindustrialization, discovery of DNA, diversified portfolio, Donald Trump, eurozone crisis, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial engineering, financial intermediation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, gender pay gap, George Akerlof, gig economy, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, hiring and firing, housing crisis, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, independent contractor, inflation targeting, informal economy, information asymmetry, intangible asset, investor state dispute settlement, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, labor-force participation, liberal capitalism, low interest rates, low skilled workers, market fundamentalism, mini-job, moral hazard, non-tariff barriers, offshore financial centre, open economy, Paris climate accords, patent troll, pension reform, price mechanism, price stability, proprietary trading, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, regulatory arbitrage, rent-seeking, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, selection bias, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, sovereign wealth fund, TaskRabbit, too big to fail, trade liberalization, transaction costs, transfer pricing, trickle-down economics, tulip mania, universal basic income, unorthodox policies, vertical integration, zero-sum game

In the first decade of the twenty-first century alone, the coverage of collective agreements in Europe fell from 68 percent to 61 percent of workers.3 In some countries, the decline was precipitous. For example, collective bargaining coverage in Greece fell from around 82 percent of workers before the crisis to 18 percent afterward. In Romania, the decrease was from 85 percent to 35 percent.4 More effective collective bargaining More effective collective bargaining can be reintroduced by adopting several changes: ■ Encourage (rather than discourage) more bargaining at the national and sectoral levels, with flexibility provisions that allow limited deviations in response to special circumstances, but within a framework that is sensitive to how abuse of such flexibility can undermine efforts of workers to bargain collectively.

…

Strength can also be achieved by limiting the ability of workers to free ride on those who support the union, and also (where relevant) by limiting the scope for management-dictated arbitration systems for dispute resolution. ■ Increase coverage of collective bargaining by making it easier for unions to organize, gain recognition, and collect dues. ■ Reduce the likelihood of a race to the bottom by mandating that basic minimum conditions apply to all workers not covered by more favorable contractual terms. ■ Support collective bargaining for all categories of workers. Sector agreements may help to extend collective bargaining where unionization is low. Raise Minimum Wages The purpose of minimum wages is to protect workers from unduly low pay.

…

Stiglitz, The Euro: How a Common Currency Threatens the Future of Europe (New York: W. W. Norton, 2017). 3. “National Industrial Relations across Europe: Collective Bargaining,” European Trade Union Institute, 2015, accessed Dec. 29, 2018, https://www.worker-participation.eu/National-Industrial-Relations/Across-Europe/Collective-Bargaining2. 4. Trends have differed markedly across Europe. For example, the number of agreements has increased in Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium. But in most countries, measures indicate that the process of collective bargaining is weaker. 5. David Card and Alan Krueger, “Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania,” The American Economic Review 84, no. 4 (Sept. 1994): 772–93. 6.

The Cigarette: A Political History by Sarah Milov

"RICO laws" OR "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations", activist lawyer, affirmative action, airline deregulation, American Legislative Exchange Council, barriers to entry, British Empire, business logic, collective bargaining, corporate personhood, deindustrialization, fixed income, Frederick Winslow Taylor, G4S, global supply chain, Herbert Marcuse, imperial preference, Indoor air pollution, information asymmetry, invisible hand, Kitchen Debate, land tenure, military-industrial complex, new economy, New Journalism, Philip Mirowski, pink-collar, Potemkin village, precariat, price stability, profit maximization, race to the bottom, Ralph Nader, rent-seeking, scientific management, Silicon Valley, structural adjustment programs, technological determinism, The Chicago School, Torches of Freedom, trade route, union organizing, Unsafe at Any Speed, Upton Sinclair, vertical integration, War on Poverty, women in the workforce

Bell’s general counsel cited fear of unrest that might follow a unilateral smoke policy change without prior bargaining with the Communications Workers of America (CWA). For Bell to singlehandedly impose a smoking policy in the absence of a judicial mandate would violate the collective-bargaining agreement between the company and its largest union. Bell was unwilling to take such a risk. By inviting the court to require a smoke-free accommodation for Shimp, Bell exacerbated conflict between Shimp and her union, which jealously guarded the collective-bargaining agreement from court interference.24 In her proposal, Shimp insisted that “employees deserve the same protection afforded the machinery so vital to our communications network, as the human body cannot be duplicated.”

…

As she wrote to a fellow employee as her trial was unfolding in 1975, “I feel the only way we are going to gain recognition of the real health hazard of ‘second hand smoke’ is through collective action.”95 But action to clear the air at work put the nonsmokers’ movement on a collision course with the closest thing the postwar labor movement had to a sacred cow: collective bargaining. The nonsmokers’ movement arrived at work just as a range of new forces—feminism, the Quality of Work Life movement, the rise of public sector unions, the occupational health movement—complicated labor’s traditionally male-dominated, seniority-centered, bread-and-butter prerogatives.96 On procedural, political, and policy grounds, union leadership and nonsmoker advocates were at odds. From the perspective of organized labor, Shimp established a dangerous precedent: it substituted a judge’s decision for a provision of the collective-bargaining agreement. Indeed, Donna Shimp fought both her employer and her union, the CWA, when she sued New Jersey Bell.

…

In 1980, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the arbitrator’s decision: the Dallas ban was invalid.109 The integrity of the collective-bargaining process prevailed over management’s overtures to workplace safety. The victory was a sad index of labor’s crimped power in an era of plant closures, liability management, and awareness of the latency period of disease.110 The International Association of Machinists’ defense of the integrity of collective bargaining was also a defense of a worker’s prerogative to expose himself to risks—with the bleak prospect of the union’s assistance in organizing a class action against offending corporations later on.

Exponential: How Accelerating Technology Is Leaving Us Behind and What to Do About It by Azeem Azhar

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", "World Economic Forum" Davos, 23andMe, 3D printing, A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, Ada Lovelace, additive manufacturing, air traffic controllers' union, Airbnb, algorithmic management, algorithmic trading, Amazon Mechanical Turk, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, Bletchley Park, Blitzscaling, Boeing 737 MAX, book value, Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, carbon footprint, Chris Urmson, Citizen Lab, Clayton Christensen, cloud computing, collective bargaining, computer age, computer vision, contact tracing, contact tracing app, coronavirus, COVID-19, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, cuban missile crisis, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, data science, David Graeber, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, decarbonisation, deep learning, deglobalization, deindustrialization, dematerialisation, Demis Hassabis, Diane Coyle, digital map, digital rights, disinformation, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Donald Trump, Double Irish / Dutch Sandwich, drone strike, Elon Musk, emotional labour, energy security, Fairchild Semiconductor, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Firefox, Frederick Winslow Taylor, fulfillment center, future of work, Garrett Hardin, gender pay gap, general purpose technology, Geoffrey Hinton, gig economy, global macro, global pandemic, global supply chain, global value chain, global village, GPT-3, Hans Moravec, happiness index / gross national happiness, hiring and firing, hockey-stick growth, ImageNet competition, income inequality, independent contractor, industrial robot, intangible asset, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Bezos, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, John Perry Barlow, Just-in-time delivery, Kickstarter, Kiva Systems, knowledge worker, Kodak vs Instagram, Law of Accelerating Returns, lockdown, low skilled workers, lump of labour, Lyft, manufacturing employment, Marc Benioff, Mark Zuckerberg, megacity, Mitch Kapor, Mustafa Suleyman, Network effects, new economy, NSO Group, Ocado, offshore financial centre, OpenAI, PalmPilot, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, Peter Thiel, Planet Labs, price anchoring, RAND corporation, ransomware, Ray Kurzweil, remote working, RFC: Request For Comment, Richard Florida, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Bork, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, Sam Altman, scientific management, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, software as a service, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, Stuxnet, subscription business, synthetic biology, tacit knowledge, TaskRabbit, tech worker, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Future of Employment, The Nature of the Firm, Thomas Malthus, TikTok, Tragedy of the Commons, Turing machine, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, universal basic income, uranium enrichment, vertical integration, warehouse automation, winner-take-all economy, workplace surveillance , Yom Kippur War

.), 73 linear value chains, 101 LinkedIn, 26, 110, 121, 237, 238 Linkos Group, 197 Linux OS, 242 Lipsey, Richard, 45 lithium-ion batteries, 40, 51 lithium, 170 localism, 11, 166–90, 252, 255 log files, 227 logarithmic scales, 20 logic gates, 18 logistic curve, 25, 30, 51, 52, 69–70 London, England, 180, 181, 183 London Underground, 133–4 looms, 157 Lordstown Strike (1972), 125 Lotus Development Corporation, 99 Luddites, 125, 253 Lufa Farms, 171–2 Luminate, 240 lump of labour fallacy, 139 Lusaka, Zambia, 15 Lyft, 146, 148 machine learning, 31–4, 54, 58, 88, 127, 129, 143 MacKinnon, Rebecca, 223 Maersk, 197, 199, 211 malaria, 253 Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 shootdown (2014), 199 Malta, 114 Malthus, Thomas, 72–3 malware, 197 Man with the Golden Gun, The (1974 film), 37 manufacturing, 10, 39, 42–4, 46, 166–7, 175–9 additive, 43–4, 46, 48, 88, 166, 169, 175–9 automation and, 130 re-localisation, 175–9 subtractive, 42–3 market saturation, 25–8, 51, 52 market share, 93–6, 111 Marshall, Alfred, 97 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 18, 147, 202, 238 Mastercard, 98 May, Theresa, 183 Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, 189 McCarthy, John, 31 McKinsey, 76, 94 McMaster University, 178 measles, 246 Mechanical Turk, 142–3, 144, 145 media literacy, 211–12 meningitis, 246 Mexico, 202 microorganisms, 42, 46, 69 Microsoft, 16–17, 65, 84–5, 88, 98–9, 100, 105, 108, 122, 221 Bing, 107 cloud computing, 85 data collection, 228 Excel, 99 internet and, 84–5, 100 network effect and, 99 Office software, 98–9, 110, 152 Windows, 85, 98–9 Workplace Productivity scores, 152 Mill, John Stuart, 193 miniaturisation, 34–5 minimum wage, 147, 161 misinformation, 11, 191, 192, 200–204, 209, 212, 217, 225, 247–8 mobile phones, 76, 121 see also smartphones; telecom companies Moderna, 245, 247 Moixa, 174 Mondelez, 197, 211 Mongol Empire (1206–1368), 44 monopolies, 10, 71, 94, 95, 114–24, 218, 255 Monopoly (board game), 82 Montreal, Quebec, 171 mood detection systems, 152 Moore, Gordon, 19, 48 Moore’s Law, 19–22, 26, 28–9, 31, 34, 63, 64, 74 artificial intelligence and, 32, 33–4 Kodak and, 83 price and, 41–2, 51, 68–9 as social fact, 29, 49 superstar companies and, 95 time, relationship with, 48–9 Moravec, Hans, 131 Moravec’s paradox, 131–2 Motorola, 76 Mount Mercy College, Cork, 57 Mozilla Firefox, 242 Mumbai, India, 181 mumps, 246 muskets, 54–5 MySpace, 26–7 Nadella, Satya, 85 Nagorno-Karabakh War (2020), 206–7 napalm, 216 NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), 56 Natanz nuclear site, Iran, 196 National Health Service (NHS), 87 nationalism, 168, 186 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), 191, 213 Netflix, 104, 107, 109, 136, 137, 138, 139, 151, 248 Netherlands, 103 Netscape Communicator, 6 networks, 58–62 network effects, 96–101, 106, 110, 121, 223 neural networks, 32–4 neutral, technology as, 5, 220–21, 254 new wars, 194 New York City, New York, 180, 183 New York Times, 3, 125, 190, 228 New Zealand, 188, 236 Newton, Isaac, 20 Nigeria, 103, 145, 182, 254 Niinistö, Sauli, 212 Nike, 102 nitrogen fertilizers, 35 Nixon, Richard, 25, 114 Nobel Prize, 64, 74, 241 Nokia, 120 non-state actors, 194, 213 North Korea, 198 North Macedonia, 200–201 Norway, 173, 216 NotPetya malware, 197, 199–200, 211, 213 Novell, 98 Noyce, Robert, 19 NSO Group, 214 nuclear weapons, 193, 195–6, 212, 237 Nuremberg Trials (1945–6), 208 O’Reilly, Tim, 107 O’Sullivan, Laura, 57–8, 60 Obama, Barack, 205, 214, 225 Ocado, 137 Ocasio-Cortez, Alexandria, 239 Oculus, 117 oDesk, 144 Ofcom, 8 Ofoto, 84 Ogburn, William, 85 oil industry, 172, 250 Houthi drone attacks (2019), 206 OAPEC crisis (1973–4), 37, 258 Shamoon attack (2012), 198 Standard Oil breakup (1911), 93–4 Olduvai, Tanzania, 42 online shopping, 48, 61, 62, 75, 94, 102, 135 open-source software, 242 Openreach, 123 Operation Opera (1981), 195–6, 209 opium, 38 Orange, 121 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 119, 167 Osborne Computer Corporation, 16 Osborne, Michael, 129 Osirak nuclear reactor, Iraq, 195–6, 209 Ostrom, Elinor, 241 Oxford University, 129, 134, 203, 226 pace of change, 3 pagers, 87 Pakistan, 145, 205 palladium, 170 PalmPilot, 173 panopticon, 152 Paris, France, 181, 183 path dependence, 86 PayPal, 98, 110 PC clones, 17 PeerIndex, 8, 201, 237 Pegasus, 214 PeoplePerHour, 144 PepsiCo, 93 Perez, Carlota, 46–7 pernicious polarization, 232 perpetual motion, 95, 106, 107, 182 Petersen, Michael Bang, 75 Phan Thi Kim Phuc, 216–17, 224, 225 pharmaceutical industry, 6, 93, 250 phase transitions, 4 Philippines, 186, 203 Phillips Exeter Academy, 150 phishing scams, 211 Phoenix, Arizona, 134 photolithography, 19 Pigou, Arthur Cecil, 97 Piketty, Thomas, 160 Ping An Good Doctor, 103, 250 Pix Moving, 166, 169, 175 PKK (Partîya Karkerên Kurdistanê), 206 Planet Labs, 69 platforms, 101–3, 219 PlayStation, 86 plough, 157 Polanyi, Michael, 133 polarisation, 231–4 polio, 246 population, 72–3 Portify, 162 Postel, Jon, 55 Postings, Robert, 233 Predator drones, 205, 206 preprints, 59–60 price gouging, 93 price of technology, 22, 68–9 computing, 68–9, 191, 249 cyber-weapons, 191–2 drones, 192 genome sequencing, 41–2, 252 renewable energy, 39–40, 250 printing press, 45 public sphere, 218, 221, 223 Pulitzer Prize, 216 punctuated equilibrium, 87–8 al-Qaeda, 205, 210–11 Qatar, 198 quantum computing, 35 quantum physics, 29 quarantines, 12, 152, 176, 183, 246 R&D (research and development), 67–8, 113, 118 racial bias, 231 racism, 225, 231, 234 radicalisation pathways, 233 radiologists, 126 Raford, Noah, 43 Raz, Ze’ev, 195, 209 RB, 197 re-localisation, 11, 166–90, 253, 255 conflict and, 189, 193, 194, 209 Reagan, Ronald, 64, 163 religion, 6, 82, 83 resilience, 257 reskilling, 159–60 responsibility gap, 209 Restrepo, Pascual, 139 Reuters, 8, 56, 132 revolutions, 87 Ricardo, David, 169–70, 177 rights, 240–41 Rise of the Robots, The (Ford), 125 Rittenhouse, Kyle, 224 Roche, 67 Rockefeller, John, 93 Rohingyas, 224 Rome, ancient, 180 Rose, Carol, 243 Rotterdam, Netherlands, 56 Rule of Law, 82 running shoes, 102, 175–6 Russell, Stuart, 31, 118 Russian Federation, 122 disinformation campaigns, 203 Estonia cyberattacks (2007), 190–91, 200 Finland, relations with, 212 Nagorno-Karabakh War (2020), 206 nuclear weapons, 237 Ukraine cyberattacks (2017), 197, 199–200 US election interference (2016), 217 Yandex, 122 S-curve, 25, 30, 51, 52, 69–70 al-Sahhaf, Muhammad Saeed, 201 Salesforce, 108–9 Saliba, Samer, 184 salt, 114 Samsung, 93, 228 San Francisco, California, 181 Sandel, Michael, 218 Sanders, Bernard, 163 Sandworm, 197, 199–200, 211 Santander, 95 Sasson, Steve, 83 satellites, 56–7, 69 Saturday Night Fever (1977 soundtrack), 72 Saudi Arabia, 108, 178, 198, 203, 206 Schmidt, Eric, 5 Schwarz Gruppe, 67 Second Machine Age, The (Brynjolfsson and McAfee), 129 self-driving vehicles, 78, 134–5, 141 semiconductors, 18–22, 28–9, 48–9, 52, 113, 251 September 11 attacks (2001), 205, 210–11 Shamoon virus, 198 Shanghai, China, 56 Shannon, Claude, 18 Sharp, 16 Shenzhen, Guangdong, 182 shipping containers, 61–2, 63 shopping, 48, 61, 62, 75, 94, 102, 135 Siemens, 196 silicon chips, see chips Silicon Valley, 5, 7, 15, 24, 65, 110, 129, 223 Sinai Peninsula, 195 Sinclair ZX81, 15, 17, 21, 36 Singapore, 56 Singles’ Day, 48 Singularity University, 5 SixDegrees, 26 Skydio R1 drone, 208 smartphones, 22, 26, 46, 47–8, 65, 86, 88, 105, 111, 222 Smith, Adam, 169–70 sneakers, 102, 175–6 Snow, Charles Percy, 7 social credit systems, 230 social media, 26–8 censorship on, 216–17, 224–6, 236 collective bargaining and, 164 data collection on, 228 interoperability, 121, 237–8 market saturation, 25–8 misinformation on, 192, 201–4, 217, 247–8 network effect, 98, 223 polarisation and, 231–4 software as a service, 109 solar power, 37–8, 53, 65, 77, 82, 90, 171, 172, 173, 249, 250, 251 SolarWinds, 200 Solberg, Erna, 216 South Africa, 170 South Korea, 188, 198, 202 Southey, Robert, 80 sovereignty, 185, 199, 214 Soviet Union (1922–91), 185, 190, 194, 212 Spain, 170, 188 Spanish flu pandemic (1918–20), 75 Speedfactory, Ansbach, 176 Spire, 69 Spotify, 69 Sputnik 1 orbit (1957), 64, 83 stagflation, 63 Standard and Poor, 104 Standard Oil, 93–4 standardisation, 54–7, 61, 62 Stanford University, 32, 58 Star Wars franchise, 99 state-sized companies, 11, 67 see also superstar companies states, 82 stirrups, 44 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 208 Stockton, California, 160 strategic snowflakes, 211 stress tests, 237 Stuxnet, 196, 214 Sudan, 183 superstar companies, 10, 11, 67, 94–124, 218–26, 252, 255 blitzscaling, 110 collective bargaining and, 163 horizontal expansion, 111–12, 218 increasing returns to scale, 108–10 innovation and, 117–18 intangible economy, 104–7, 118, 156 interoperability and, 120–22, 237–9 monopolies, 114–24, 218 network effect, 96–101, 121 platform model, 101–3, 219 taxation of, 118–19 vertical expansion, 112–13 workplace cultures, 151 supply chains, 61–2, 166–7, 169, 175, 187, 252 surveillance, 152–3, 158 Surviving AI (Chace), 129 Sutskever, Ilya, 32 synthetic biology, 42, 46, 69, 174, 245, 250 Syria, 186 Taiwan, 181, 212 Talkspace, 144 Tallinn, Estonia, 190 Tang, Audrey, 212 Tanzania, 42, 183 TaskRabbit, 144 Tasmania, Australia, 197 taxation, 10, 63, 96, 118–19 gig economy and, 146 superstar companies and, 118–19 Taylor, Frederick Winslow, 150, 152, 153, 154 Tel Aviv, Israel, 181 telecom companies, 122–3 Tencent, 65, 104, 108, 122 territorial sovereignty, 185, 199, 214 Tesco, 67, 93 Tesla, 69, 78, 113 Thailand, 176, 203 Thatcher, Margaret, 64, 163 Thelen, Kathleen, 87 Thiel, Peter, 110–11 3D printing, see additive manufacturing TikTok, 28, 69, 159–60, 219 Tisné, Martin, 240 Tomahawk missiles, 207 Toyota, 95 trade networks, 61–2, 166–7, 169, 175 trade unions, see collective bargaining Trading Places (1983 film), 132 Tragedy of the Commons, The (Hardin), 241 transistors, 18–22, 28–9, 48–9, 52, 113, 251 transparency, 236 Treaty of Westphalia (1648), 199 TRS-80, 16 Trump, Donald, 79, 119, 166, 201, 225, 237 Tufekci, Zeynep, 233 Turing, Alan, 18, 22 Turkey, 102, 176, 186, 198, 202, 206, 231 Tversky, Amos, 74 23andMe, 229–30 Twilio, 151 Twitch, 225 Twitter, 65, 201, 202, 219, 223, 225, 237 two cultures, 7, 8 Uber, 69, 94, 102, 103, 106, 142, 144, 145 Assembly Bill 5 (California, 2019), 148 engineering jobs, 156 London ban (2019), 183, 188 London protest (2016), 153 pay at, 147, 156 satisfaction levels at, 146 Uber BV v Aslam (2021), 148 UiPath, 130 Ukraine, 197, 199 Unilever, 153 Union of Concerned Scientists, 56 unions, see collective bargaining United Arab Emirates, 43, 198, 250 United Autoworkers Union, 162 United Kingdom BBC, 87 Biobank, 242 Brexit (2016–20), 6, 168 collective bargaining in, 163 Covid-19 epidemic (2020–21), 79, 203 DDT in, 253 digital minilateralism, 188 drone technology in, 207 flashing of headlights in, 83 Golden Triangle, 170 Google and, 116 Industrial Revolution (1760–1840), 79–81 Luddite rebellion (1811–16), 125, 253 misinformation in, 203, 204 National Cyber Force, 200 NHS, 87 self-employment in, 148 telecom companies in, 123 Thatcher government (1979–90), 64, 163 United Nations, 87, 88, 188 United States antitrust law in, 114 automation in, 127 Battle of the Overpass (1937), 162 Capitol building storming (2021), 225 China, relations with, 166 Cold War (1947–91), 194, 212, 213 collective bargaining in, 163 Covid-19 epidemic (2020–21), 79, 202–4 Cyber Command, 200, 210 DDT in, 253 drone technology in, 205, 214 economists in, 63 HIPA Act (1996), 230 Kenosha unrest shooting (2020), 224 Lordstown Strike (1972), 125 manufacturing in, 130 misinformation in, 202–4 mobile phones in, 76 nuclear weapons, 237 Obama administration (2009–17), 205, 214 polarisation in, 232 presidential election (2016), 199, 201, 217 presidential election (2020), 202–3 Reagan administration (1981–9), 64, 163 self-employment in, 148 September 11 attacks (2001), 205, 210–11 shipping containers in, 61 shopping in, 48 solar energy research, 37 Standard Oil breakup (1911), 93–4 taxation in, 63, 119 Trump administration (2017–21), 79, 119, 166, 168, 201, 225, 237 Vietnam War (1955–75), 216 War on Terror (2001–), 205 universal basic income (UBI), 160, 189 universal service obligation, 122 University of Cambridge, 127, 188 University of Chicago, 63 University of Colorado, 73 University of Delaware, 55 University of Oxford, 129, 134, 203, 226 University of Southern California, 55 unwritten rules, 82 Uppsala Conflict Data Program, 194 UpWork, 145–6 USB (Universal Serial Bus), 51 Ut, Nick, 216 utility providers, 122–3 vaccines, 12, 202, 211, 245–7 Vail, Theodore, 100 value-free, technology as, 5, 220–21, 254 Veles, North Macedonia, 200–201 Véliz, Carissa, 226 Venezuela, 75 venture capitalists, 117 vertical expansion, 112–13, 116 vertical farms, 171–2, 251 video games, 86 Vietnam, 61, 175, 216 Virological, 245 Visa, 98 VisiCalc, 99 Vodafone, 121 Vogels, Werner, 68 Wag!

…

It plainly does.’61 In part, these teething problems are down to an exponential gap – between new modes of employment enabled by exponential technologies, and a set of labour laws designed in the twentieth century. The great triumphs of the twentieth-century labour movement were about securing humane working conditions for contracted employees. The eight-hour day, sick leave, pensions, collective bargaining – all were extended to those who were formally employed by a company. But in the Exponential Age, formal employees are relatively decreasing in number. The technologies of this era create new ways of working, with the smartphone and the task-matching algorithm allowing firms to rely on pools of freelance talent.

…

This system of management works like Taylorism on steroids – with all the dehumanising downsides but without the commensurate high pay or job stability. One Amazon worker’s claim, reported in The Guardian, that the company leaders ‘care more about the robots than they care about the employees’ encapsulates one of the oldest criticisms of scientific management.73 Except, this time round, workers don’t have the collective bargaining power they once did. In the ultra-Taylorist companies of the twenty-first century, the power balance is skewed heavily in the favour of bosses. Amazon automatically fires about 10 per cent of its factory staff annually, for not being able to move packages through the system quickly enough.74 The company’s ‘proprietary productivity metric’, which dictates how quickly workers must process each order, gets our one-day Prime deliveries to us on time.

Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity by Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", "World Economic Forum" Davos, 4chan, agricultural Revolution, AI winter, Airbnb, airline deregulation, algorithmic bias, algorithmic management, Alignment Problem, AlphaGo, An Inconvenient Truth, artificial general intelligence, augmented reality, basic income, Bellingcat, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, Bletchley Park, blue-collar work, British Empire, carbon footprint, carbon tax, carried interest, centre right, Charles Babbage, ChatGPT, Clayton Christensen, clean water, cloud computing, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collective bargaining, computer age, Computer Lib, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, conceptual framework, contact tracing, Corn Laws, Cornelius Vanderbilt, coronavirus, corporate social responsibility, correlation does not imply causation, cotton gin, COVID-19, creative destruction, declining real wages, deep learning, DeepMind, deindustrialization, Demis Hassabis, Deng Xiaoping, deskilling, discovery of the americas, disinformation, Donald Trump, Douglas Engelbart, Douglas Engelbart, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, energy transition, Erik Brynjolfsson, European colonialism, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, factory automation, facts on the ground, fake news, Filter Bubble, financial innovation, Ford Model T, Ford paid five dollars a day, fulfillment center, full employment, future of work, gender pay gap, general purpose technology, Geoffrey Hinton, global supply chain, Gordon Gekko, GPT-3, Grace Hopper, Hacker Ethic, Ida Tarbell, illegal immigration, income inequality, indoor plumbing, industrial robot, interchangeable parts, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, Jacques de Vaucanson, James Watt: steam engine, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, job automation, Johannes Kepler, John Markoff, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Kenneth Arrow, Kevin Roose, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, labor-force participation, land reform, land tenure, Les Trente Glorieuses, low skilled workers, low-wage service sector, M-Pesa, manufacturing employment, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, megacity, mobile money, Mother of all demos, move fast and break things, natural language processing, Neolithic agricultural revolution, Norbert Wiener, NSO Group, offshore financial centre, OpenAI, PageRank, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, paperclip maximiser, pattern recognition, Paul Graham, Peter Thiel, Productivity paradox, profit maximization, profit motive, QAnon, Ralph Nader, Ray Kurzweil, recommendation engine, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Bork, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, robotic process automation, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, seminal paper, shareholder value, Sheryl Sandberg, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, social intelligence, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, social web, South Sea Bubble, speech recognition, spice trade, statistical model, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, strikebreaker, subscription business, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, supply-chain management, surveillance capitalism, tacit knowledge, tech billionaire, technoutopianism, Ted Nelson, TED Talk, The Future of Employment, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, theory of mind, Thomas Malthus, too big to fail, total factor productivity, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, trickle-down economics, Turing machine, Turing test, Twitter Arab Spring, Two Sigma, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, union organizing, universal basic income, Unsafe at Any Speed, Upton Sinclair, upwardly mobile, W. E. B. Du Bois, War on Poverty, WikiLeaks, wikimedia commons, working poor, working-age population

Even before the Depression, some intellectuals and businesspeople were acknowledging that without collective bargaining, productivity gains would not be shared fairly, even if companies such as Ford raised wages to reduce turnover. In 1928 the pioneering American engineer Morris Llewellyn Cooke spoke to the Taylor Society, a group dedicated to “scientific management”: The interests of society, including those of the workers, suggest some measure of collective bargaining in industry to the end that the weaker side may be represented in negotiations as to hours, wages, status and working conditions. Collective bargaining implies the organization of the workers on a basis extensive enough—say nation-wide—as to make this bargaining power effective.

…

Carle Conway, chairman of the board of Continental Can and a “hero of capitalist endeavor,” according to the Harvard Business School (unofficial scorekeeper), was surprisingly pro-union: Certainly anyone who has been in business during [the past 30 years] would have to be naive to think that management by and large desired collective bargaining or certain of the other reforms which labor has finally won.… But isn’t it also likely that better understanding of the basic fundamentals involved in the struggle over the last thirty years between labor and management can work toward harmonizing the two viewpoints into a common objective and so make collective bargaining and many of the other reforms operate in the interests of both labor and management? However, New Dealers’ aspirations, in contrast to those of the Swedish Social Democratic Workers’ Party, would not be fully realized.

…

With the demise of good jobs available to most workers and the rapid growth in the incomes of a small fraction of the population trained as computer scientists, engineers, and financiers, we are on our way to a truly two-tiered society, in which workers and those commanding the economic means and social recognition live separately, and that separation grows daily. This is what the English writer H. G. Wells anticipated in The Time Machine, with a future dystopia where technology had so segregated people that they evolved into two separate species. This is not just a problem in the United States. Because of better protection for low-paid workers, collective bargaining, and decent minimum wages, workers with relatively low education levels in Scandinavia, France, or Canada have not suffered wage declines like their American counterparts. All the same, inequality has risen, and good jobs for people without college degrees have become scarce in these countries as well.

Two Nations, Indivisible: A History of Inequality in America: A History of Inequality in America by Jamie Bronstein

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, back-to-the-land, barriers to entry, basic income, Bernie Sanders, big-box store, Black Lives Matter, blue-collar work, Branko Milanovic, British Empire, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, clean water, cognitive dissonance, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, Community Supported Agriculture, corporate personhood, crony capitalism, deindustrialization, desegregation, Donald Trump, ending welfare as we know it, Frederick Winslow Taylor, full employment, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, income inequality, interchangeable parts, invisible hand, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, labor-force participation, land reform, land tenure, longitudinal study, low skilled workers, low-wage service sector, mandatory minimum, mass incarceration, minimum wage unemployment, moral hazard, moral panic, mortgage debt, New Urbanism, non-tariff barriers, obamacare, occupational segregation, Occupy movement, oil shock, plutocrats, price discrimination, race to the bottom, rent control, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, Sam Peltzman, scientific management, Scientific racism, Simon Kuznets, single-payer health, Strategic Defense Initiative, strikebreaker, the long tail, too big to fail, trade route, transcontinental railway, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, trickle-down economics, universal basic income, Upton Sinclair, upwardly mobile, urban renewal, vertical integration, W. E. B. Du Bois, wage slave, War on Poverty, women in the workforce, working poor, Works Progress Administration

While Roosevelt reached out to his labor constituency through the Fair Labor Standards Act, which recognized the right to unionize and created the National Labor Relations Board, labor unions and Democratic politicians were divided on the advisability of a minimum wage.73 The AFL favored collective bargaining between (its mostly skilled, male) employees and their employers. The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), which was more inclusive, endorsed a minimum wage because it offered a starting point for collective bargaining rather than a ceiling.74 The Democratic Party was divided because the labor market in the United States was segmented. Southern workers earned lower wages, lowering the cost of production in the South and promoting southern competitiveness.

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Moreover, if American industries were protected, American manufacturing workers could earn higher wages and avoid becoming impoverished like English factory workers.22 Newly enfranchised workingmen not only participated in presidential elections and shaped concerns about inequality at the national level, they also participated in a popular politics much closer to the ground. As historian Paul Gilje shows, the nature of rioting changed in the 1820s and 1830s from deferential crowd behavior to “collective bargaining by riot.” This tactic spread from the ranks of unskilled laborers, who traditionally had little leverage, to journeymen in the skilled trades, who felt increasingly pressed between an affluent class of master craftsmen and a large pool of partly trained workers who were capable of doing the journeymen’s jobs for less money.

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Voters’ options ranged from the Progressive Party to the Socialist Party, the Farmer-Labor Party, and the Workers’ Party. Rather than seek revolution, the Socialist Party, which nominated Eugene V. Debs for president in 1912, pursued legislation that benefited workers, like child labor legislation and workers’ compensation, and the strategy of collective bargaining.46 The Socialist Party also advocated for votes for women, who could see that the state might serve to assist rather than to hinder them. Socialist parties elected 12,000 candidates to office in 340 cities in 1912, and Eugene Debs attracted 6 percent of the popular vote. Once in office, Socialist city officers addressed crucial working-class issues like sanitation, zoning, and improvement of squalid working-class neighborhoods.47 But their reach was limited, because despite their gradualism, they were met with antisocialist hysteria that culminated in the first Red Scare of the late 1910s.

Essential: How the Pandemic Transformed the Long Fight for Worker Justice by Jamie K. McCallum

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, American Legislative Exchange Council, Anthropocene, antiwork, Bear Stearns, Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter, carbon tax, cognitive dissonance, collective bargaining, company town, coronavirus, COVID-19, death from overwork, defund the police, deindustrialization, deskilling, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, future of work, George Floyd, gig economy, global pandemic, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, green new deal, housing crisis, income inequality, independent contractor, invisible hand, Jeff Bezos, job automation, karōshi / gwarosa / guolaosi, labor-force participation, laissez-faire capitalism, lockdown, Loma Prieta earthquake, low-wage service sector, Lyft, manufacturing employment, market fundamentalism, minimum wage unemployment, moral hazard, Naomi Klein, occupational segregation, post-work, QR code, race to the bottom, remote working, rewilding, ride hailing / ride sharing, side hustle, single-payer health, social distancing, stock buybacks, strikebreaker, subprime mortgage crisis, TaskRabbit, The Great Resignation, the strength of weak ties, trade route, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, union organizing, Upton Sinclair, women in the workforce, working poor, workplace surveillance , Works Progress Administration, zoonotic diseases

The 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which set the first maximum-hour limits and established the minimum wage, and the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (a.k.a. the Wagner Act), which guaranteed collective bargaining rights, did not extend to most low-wage care workers. Home-based caregivers’ exclusion from the National Labor Relations Act meant they were not allowed the collective bargaining rights that would confer the power to fight for better conditions. A few decades later, the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act had little relevance for most domestic workers because its antidiscrimination and anti–sexual harassment clauses didn’t apply to workplaces that employed fewer than fifteen people.16 The 1970 Occupational Health and Safety Act was similarly irrelevant since it didn’t apply to homeowners who employ workers for “domestic household tasks” in their homes.

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In 1933, Alabama coal miners led successful union organizing drives at their own jobsites and then proceeded to organize entire towns. Labor insurgency led to proworker legislation like the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, which regulated wages and granted collective bargaining rights. Two years later, the Wagner Act extended collective bargaining rights and eliminated company-sponsored unions. Initially challenged as unconstitutional, the Wagner Act’s full legal force didn’t take effect until it was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1937, again following a wave of strikes and disruptive protests.35 Lessons for today could not be clearer: labor law reform won’t facilitate mass organizing; it will result from it.

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Led by corporate-backed organizations like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and emboldened by Republican electoral victories in the 2010 midterm elections, this movement struck out to transform American labor law. In 2011 and 2012, fifteen states passed laws that restricted the rights of public employees to collectively bargain. During the same time, nineteen states introduced “right-to-work” laws that try to bankrupt unions by prohibiting them from collecting dues from all workers covered by their contracts.9 The decline of worker voice and poverty wages at the bottom of the labor market are compounded by other factors that make for miserable jobs across industries.

The End of Work by Jeremy Rifkin

banking crisis, Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness, blue-collar work, cashless society, Charles Babbage, collective bargaining, compensation consultant, computer age, deskilling, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, employer provided health coverage, Erik Brynjolfsson, full employment, future of work, general-purpose programming language, George Gilder, global village, Great Leap Forward, Herbert Marcuse, high-speed rail, hiring and firing, informal economy, interchangeable parts, invention of the telegraph, Jacques de Vaucanson, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Kaizen: continuous improvement, karōshi / gwarosa / guolaosi, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, land reform, low interest rates, low skilled workers, means of production, military-industrial complex, new economy, New Urbanism, Paul Samuelson, pink-collar, pneumatic tube, post-Fordism, post-industrial society, Productivity paradox, prudent man rule, Richard Florida, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, Silicon Valley, speech recognition, strikebreaker, technoutopianism, Thorstein Veblen, Toyota Production System, trade route, trickle-down economics, warehouse automation, warehouse robotics, women in the workforce, working poor, working-age population, Works Progress Administration

The prospect of labor displacement can be eased, in part, by joint consultation between companies and unions and by management planning to schedule the introduction of automation in periods of high employment, to permit attrition, reduce the size of the labor force, and to allow time for the retraining of employees. 17 The AFL-CIO passed a number of resolutions at its annual conventions in the 1960s, calling for retraining provisions in collective bargaining agreements. Employers were more than willing to concede 86 THE THIRD INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION to labor's new demands. The costs of introducing retraining programs was far less onerous than the prospect of a long and protracted battle with labor over the introduction of new automated technologies on the shop floor. Between 1960 and 1967, the percentage of collective bargaining agreements containing provisions for job retraining increased from 12 percent to more than 40 percent. iS Labor also lent its political muscle to federal legislation to promote job retraining.

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Noble, p. 250. 16. Ibid., p. 253. 17. CIO Committee on Economic Policy, Automation (Washington, D.e.: Congress of Independent Organizations, 1955), pp. 21-22. 18. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Major Collective Bargaining AgreementsTraining and Retraining Provisions, Bulletin no. 1425-7 (Washington, D.e.: Government Printing Office, 1969), p. 4; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Characteristics of Major Collective Bargaining Agreements, January 1, 1980, Bulletin no. 2095, p. 105. 19. Kalleberg, Arne L., et al., "Labor in the Newspaper Industry," in Cornfield, Daniel B., Workers, Managers and Technological Change: Emerging Patterns of Labor Relations (New York: Plenum Press, 1987), p. 64. 20.

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They not only cause less trouble than humans doing comparable work, but they can be built to ring an alarm bell in the central control room whenever they are not working properly."26 The article, and others that followed, offered a grand new visionthe prospect of a Third Industrial Revolution. The theme of the automatic factory fell on receptive ears. The end of World War II brought a wave of labor unrest. Angry over wage freezes imposed during the war and anxious to make up for ground lost in collective bargaining because of the no-strike pledge during the conflict, organized labor began to challenge management on a wide front. Between 1945 and 1955, the United States experienced over 43,000 strikes in the most concentrated wave of labor/management confrontations in industrial history.27 Crossing into the High-Tech Frontier 67 Management were growing concerned over what they perceived as organized labors invasion of their traditional terrain.

Brave New World of Work by Ulrich Beck

affirmative action, anti-globalists, Asian financial crisis, basic income, Berlin Wall, collective bargaining, conceptual framework, Fall of the Berlin Wall, feminist movement, full employment, future of work, Gunnar Myrdal, hiring and firing, illegal immigration, income inequality, informal economy, job automation, knowledge worker, labour market flexibility, labour mobility, low skilled workers, McJob, means of production, mini-job, post-Fordism, post-work, postnationalism / post nation state, profit maximization, purchasing power parity, rising living standards, scientific management, Silicon Valley, technological determinism, working poor, working-age population, zero-sum game

Basically, this raises the question of how a postnational yet political civil society is possible in Europe. My answer is as follows. Only if the insecure new forms of paid employment are converted into a right to multiple work, a right to discontinuity, a right to choose working hours, a right to sovereignty over working time enshrined in collective-bargaining agreements – only then can new free spaces be secured in the coordination of work, life and political activity. Every person would thus be enabled to plan his or her own life over a period of one or more years, in its transitions between family, paid employment, leisure and political involvement, and to harmonize this with the claims and demands of others.

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Their success rested in turn upon a unique set of historical, cultural and political conditions: the proprietary ‘skilled worker’ and a corresponding culture of training and lifestyle; mass demand in the home market for mass-produced goods; a matching local supply economy; strong trade unions and free collective bargaining that was also highly valued by politicians; a corporate culture geared to partnership between both sides of industry; a guiding political image of ‘working citizens’, which replaced talk of class struggle with moderate negotiating practices and a commitment to democratic institutions. While Germany's postwar economic miracle led to collective advancement that favoured acceptance of the democratic system, both the question of unemployment and the question of democracy are posed differently in the ‘post-national constellation’ in which the German model has been losing the ground beneath its feet.

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Such a history would then, in the nature of things, be full of breaks and contradictions; education would be interrupted and resumed, McJobs would often rank equally with starting up in a business of one's own, and everything would be woven together into a quite individual web of activities and employ-ment situations. One thing, however, is common to all these life-constructions: they lie outside the classical employee's biography, outside union agreements and statutory salary scales, outside collective bargaining and home mortgage contracts.32 And they are the basis for a precarious new culture of independence: ‘business men and women in their own affairs’. Scenario 8: individualization of work – disintegration of society Linda's new working life is not without its drawbacks. Chief among them is a constant cloud of anxiety about finding the next job.

Work in the Future The Automation Revolution-Palgrave MacMillan (2019) by Robert Skidelsky Nan Craig

3D printing, Airbnb, algorithmic trading, AlphaGo, Alvin Toffler, Amazon Web Services, anti-work, antiwork, artificial general intelligence, asset light, autonomous vehicles, basic income, behavioural economics, business cycle, cloud computing, collective bargaining, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, correlation does not imply causation, creative destruction, data is the new oil, data science, David Graeber, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deep learning, DeepMind, deindustrialization, Demis Hassabis, deskilling, disintermediation, do what you love, Donald Trump, driverless car, Erik Brynjolfsson, fake news, feminist movement, Ford Model T, Frederick Winslow Taylor, future of work, Future Shock, general purpose technology, gig economy, global supply chain, income inequality, independent contractor, informal economy, Internet of things, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, job automation, job polarisation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, John von Neumann, Joseph Schumpeter, knowledge economy, Loebner Prize, low skilled workers, Lyft, Mark Zuckerberg, means of production, moral panic, Network effects, new economy, Nick Bostrom, off grid, pattern recognition, post-work, Ronald Coase, scientific management, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, sharing economy, SoftBank, Steve Jobs, strong AI, tacit knowledge, technological determinism, technoutopianism, TED Talk, The Chicago School, The Future of Employment, the market place, The Nature of the Firm, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, Turing test, Uber for X, uber lyft, universal basic income, wealth creators, working poor

Case Studies There are several methods through which shorter working has been achieved in the past: legislation, collective bargaining, company-level initiatives, and individual and voluntary time reduction. I take the Netherlands, Germany and France as case studies, each of which uses different combinations of these approaches and with varying success. Full-time employees in the Netherlands work 39 hours on average, less than the average full-time British worker. This is mainly due to shortening working hours through collective bargaining. More notably, however, an unusually large number of employees work voluntarily part-time (as opposed to involuntarily working part-time when they would rather work more hours): throughout the 1980s and 1990s there was a huge rise in part-time work (De Spiegelaere and Piasna 2017).

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As of 2004, sector-level collective bargaining had resulted in a 35-hour week for a fifth of German workers (Hayden 2013: 129). Recently, workers represented by the German railway and transport union Eisenbahn- und Verkehrsgewerkschaft (EVG) have gained the opportunity to choose between wage increases and more holidays. In 2017, 56 per cent of employees at the rail company voted in favour of boosting their holiday allowance by six days. This was, again, only possible because employees were already satisfied with their wages. Germany has much stronger collective bargaining institutions than the UK, where during the 1980s most employer federations were dismantled or ended their involvement in collective bargaining.

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As a result, the category of unemployed workers that still work intermittently in order to accumulate unemployment insurance benefits and wages has considerably grown over the last decade. The way most unions operate in France perpetuates this labour market dualism. France has one of the lowest rates of union membership in the OECD, and yet one of the highest rates of wage and collective bargaining coverage, due to the legal and administrative extension procedure, which results in the application of collective agreements to firms that are not members of one of the signatory employer associations. This impacts the way in which 7 Attitudes to Work 69 unions behave, mainly in a confrontational style.

Democracy and Prosperity: Reinventing Capitalism Through a Turbulent Century by Torben Iversen, David Soskice

Andrei Shleifer, assortative mating, augmented reality, barriers to entry, Big Tech, Bretton Woods, business cycle, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, central bank independence, centre right, clean tech, cloud computing, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, colonial rule, confounding variable, corporate governance, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, deindustrialization, deskilling, Donald Trump, first-past-the-post, full employment, general purpose technology, gentrification, Gini coefficient, hiring and firing, implied volatility, income inequality, industrial cluster, inflation targeting, invisible hand, knowledge economy, labor-force participation, liberal capitalism, low skilled workers, low-wage service sector, means of production, middle-income trap, mirror neurons, mittelstand, Network effects, New Economic Geography, new economy, New Urbanism, non-tariff barriers, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, open borders, open economy, passive investing, precariat, race to the bottom, radical decentralization, rent-seeking, RFID, road to serfdom, Robert Bork, Robert Gordon, Silicon Valley, smart cities, speech recognition, tacit knowledge, The Future of Employment, The Great Moderation, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, the strength of weak ties, too big to fail, trade liberalization, union organizing, urban decay, vertical integration, Washington Consensus, winner-take-all economy, working-age population, World Values Survey, young professional, zero-sum game

The Determinants of Populist Voting in Six Countries with Significant Populist Parties 256 Figures 1.1 Measures of Distribution of Income, 2010 vs. 1985 24 1.2 Number of Patents per One Million People in the Working Age Population 27 1.3 The Distribution of Income in Advanced Democracies Compared to Nonadvanced Countries 36 2.1 Protocorporatist States and Industrial Relations Structuring 70 3.1 Average Union Density Rates and Wage Coordination in 18 Advanced Democracies 106 3.2 Average Density and Collective Bargaining Coordination in Four Advanced Democracies 107 3.3 The Vote Shares of Social Democratic and Center Parties 116 3.4 Male Wage Inequality 118 3.5 Average Industrial Employment as a Share of Total Civilian Employment in 18 Advanced Democracies 119 3.6 Central Bank Independence in 18 OECD Countries 122 3.7 The Responsiveness of Governments to Adverse Shocks in Different Political Systems 126 3.8 Voter Support for Populist Parties 130 4.1 Percent with Tertiary Degrees, by Age Group 147 4.2 Capital Market Openness and the Stock of FDI in Advanced Democracies 148 4.3 Financialization of Advanced Economies 150 4.4 Inflation Rates before and after Adoption of Inflation Targeting 153 4.5 The Strengthening of Product Market Competition Policies in ACDs 154 4.6 Number and Depth of Trade Agreements 155 4.7 A Strategic Complementarities Game of Reforms 162 4.8 Support for Government Intervention in Economy, by Policy Area 166 4.9 Summary of Causal Linkages in Big-City Agglomerations 200 5.1 The Great Gatsby Curve 221 5.2 The Link between the Transition to the Knowledge Economy and Populism 227 5.3 The Difference in Populist Values between the Old and New Middle Class 240 5.4 Educational Opportunity and Populist Values 242 5.5 The Rise of Populist Voting 245 5.6 The Difference in Populist Vote between the Old and New Middle Class 247 6.1 The Symbiotic Relationship 259 PREFACE This book started from our discussions of a paradox.

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The fact of relatively skill-intensive workforces then meant that workforce cooperation, moderation of real wages, and ultimately the training process itself became important issues for business, issues which were difficult to solve without union cooperation. Thus agreements with unions which traded cooperative workforces for collective bargaining rights were attractive to both sides. But, to be credible bargaining partners to business in the supply of cooperation, unions needed to have the power to control their local affiliates within factories: hence unions needed centralized power outside the company. This was not straightforward, however, because unions, even when understanding the need for centralization, were often prevented by their locals from imposing it.

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Thus agreements with powerful central unions were necessary to secure the cooperation of skilled workers, and this was noticeable in the early years of the twentieth century. These agreements covered explicitly or implicitly the right of managers to organize production and the implied workforce cooperation, collective bargaining, and issues related to training and tenure; in essence, these agreements enabled industry to invest in cospecific assets with their workforces. So the period before the full incorporation of labor into the political system was advantageous to (especially big) industry: on the one hand, industry could structure agreements with unions which were underwritten implicitly by the political regime, at least for industry; on the other, the politically unified working class was kept out of effective political power and thus the possibility of advancing redistribution and social protection on its own terms.

Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (And Why We Don't Talk About It) by Elizabeth S. Anderson

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, barriers to entry, call centre, collective bargaining, corporate governance, correlation does not imply causation, declining real wages, deskilling, feminist movement, Frederick Winslow Taylor, full employment, independent contractor, invisible hand, Jeremy Corbyn, manufacturing employment, means of production, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, principal–agent problem, profit motive, Ronald Coase, scientific management, shareholder value, Socratic dialogue, spinning jenny, The Nature of the Firm, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trickle-down economics, Tyler Cowen

But these theories do not explain the breadth of employers’ authority over workers’ lives. “Under the employment-at-will baseline, workers, in effect, cede all of their rights to their employers, except those specifically guaranteed to them by law, for the duration of the employment relationship.” The result is that “Employers’ authority over workers, outside of collective bargaining and a few other contexts … is sweeping, arbitrary, and unaccountable—not subject to notice, process, or appeal.” Workplace governance “is a form of private government,” underwritten by law. Of course, if workers object to the conditions of their employment, they can quit. But the costs of exit for many workers are extremely high.

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Nevertheless, the fact remains that “the constitution of workplace government is both arbitrary and dictatorial,” and that it “is not dictated by efficiency or freedom of contract, but rather by the state.” Anderson closes by suggesting a variety of ways to increase worker protections against arbitrary treatment: these include enhanced exit rights, a workers’ bill of rights, and greater “voice,” including via improved legal support for unions and collective bargaining. Most importantly, our public discourse should recognize the reality of workers’ subjection to arbitrary private government in the workplace and explore ways of remedying it. The first of our four commentators, Ann Hughes, a leading historian of early modern England and the English Civil War, and Professor of Early Modern History at Keele University in the UK, applauds as “exemplary” Anderson’s “deployment of historical material as a storehouse of imagination, and a legacy to the present.”

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But, he insists, “the essence of the contract is that it should only state the limits to the powers of the entrepreneur.”17 This suggests that the limits of the employer’s powers are an object of negotiation or at least communication between the parties. In the vast majority of cases, outside the contexts of collective bargaining or for higher-level employees, this is not true. Most workers are hired without any negotiation over the content of the employer’s authority, and without a written or oral contract specifying any limits to it. If they receive an employee handbook indicating such limits, the inclusion of a simple disclaimer (which is standard practice) is sufficient to nullify any implied contract exception to at-will employment in most states.18 No wonder they are shocked and outraged when their boss fires them for being too attractive,19 for failing to show up at a political rally in support of the boss’s favored political candidate,20 even because their daughter was raped by a friend of the boss.21 What, then, determines the scope and limits of the employer’s authority, if it is not a meeting of minds of the parties?

Riding for Deliveroo: Resistance in the New Economy by Callum Cant

Airbnb, algorithmic management, call centre, capitalist realism, collective bargaining, deskilling, Elon Musk, fixed-gear, future of work, gamification, gig economy, housing crisis, illegal immigration, independent contractor, information asymmetry, invention of the steam engine, machine readable, Mark Zuckerberg, means of production, new economy, Pearl River Delta, race to the bottom, ride hailing / ride sharing, scientific management, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, strikebreaker, tech worker, union organizing, Winter of Discontent, women in the workforce

Often sites were run as a ‘closed shop’. This meant that the workers would only allow other unionized workers on the site. But workers on the lump didn’t take part in collective bargaining led by the trade unions, and instead made individual deals with the employer. The lump decisively broke the closed-shop model and introduced two parallel processes: the individual negotiations of ‘self-employed’ workers on the lump, and the collective bargaining of directly employed workers via the trade unions. On some sites, employers even began to refuse to hire any direct employees at all. The workforce in the industry was decisively split.

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Those standing at the top of the steps loom over him. He gestures for the workers to be quiet. He starts to speak: ‘Can I have some silence, ladies and gents …’ The company, he says, is willing to listen to every worker’s concerns, individually. The response is not positive. The workers want collective bargaining, and they tell him as much, at full volume. One worker steps forward: ‘Everyone wants the same thing: £8 per hour, plus £1 per drop. That’s it.’ Dan responds, ‘Listen guys, there needs to be an explanation around what the changes are, it’s a change in payment method, not lower wages …’ The workers cut him off.

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They settled for a compromise position of the status quo, with the existing workers keeping a £7 per hour plus £1 per drop payment structure. It was only a partial victory. All new workers would be put on the new per-drop-only payment structure. Despite a large proportion of the strikers joining the IWGB and demanding it lead negotiations, Deliveroo continued to refuse to participate in formal collective bargaining or to allow trade union representation. Deliveroo continued to maintain the legal fiction that its couriers were ‘independent contractors’. But that strike was the beginning of something. Deliveroo workers had shown they could take on their bosses – and, from London, the fight would spread, across the UK, Europe, and, finally, the world. 1 Introduction Deliveroo is a food-delivery platform.

How Will Capitalism End? by Wolfgang Streeck

"there is no alternative" (TINA), accounting loophole / creative accounting, air traffic controllers' union, Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, basic income, behavioural economics, Ben Bernanke: helicopter money, billion-dollar mistake, Bretton Woods, business cycle, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Carmen Reinhart, central bank independence, centre right, Clayton Christensen, collective bargaining, conceptual framework, corporate governance, creative destruction, credit crunch, David Brooks, David Graeber, debt deflation, deglobalization, deindustrialization, disruptive innovation, en.wikipedia.org, eurozone crisis, failed state, financial deregulation, financial innovation, first-past-the-post, fixed income, full employment, Gini coefficient, global reserve currency, Google Glasses, haute cuisine, income inequality, information asymmetry, invisible hand, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, junk bonds, Kenneth Rogoff, labour market flexibility, labour mobility, late capitalism, liberal capitalism, low interest rates, market bubble, means of production, military-industrial complex, moral hazard, North Sea oil, offshore financial centre, open borders, pension reform, plutocrats, Plutonomy: Buying Luxury, Explaining Global Imbalances, post-industrial society, private sector deleveraging, profit maximization, profit motive, quantitative easing, reserve currency, rising living standards, Robert Gordon, savings glut, secular stagnation, shareholder value, sharing economy, sovereign wealth fund, tacit knowledge, technological determinism, The Future of Employment, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, transaction costs, Uber for X, upwardly mobile, Vilfredo Pareto, winner-take-all economy, Wolfgang Streeck

The structure of the post-war settlement between labour and capital was fundamentally the same across the otherwise widely different countries where democratic capitalism had come to be instituted. It included an expanding welfare state, the right of workers to free collective bargaining and a political guarantee of full employment, underwritten by governments making extensive use of the Keynesian economic toolkit. When growth began to falter in the late 1960s, however, this combination became difficult to maintain. While free collective bargaining enabled workers through their unions to act on what had become firmly ingrained expectations of regular yearly wage increases, governments’ commitment to full employment, together with a growing welfare state, protected unions from potential employment losses caused by wage settlements in excess of productivity growth.

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In subsequent years governments all over the Western world faced the question of how to make trade unions moderate their members’ wage demands without having to rescind the Keynesian promise of full employment. In countries where the institutional structure of the collective-bargaining system was not conducive to the negotiation of tripartite ‘social pacts’, most governments remained convinced throughout the 1970s that allowing unemployment to rise in order to contain real wage increases was too risky for their own survival, if not for the stability of capitalist democracy as such. Their only way out was an accommodating monetary policy which, while allowing free collective bargaining and full employment to continue to coexist, did so at the expense of raising the rate of inflation to levels that accelerated over time.

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By the standard model of democracy, I mean the peculiar combination, as had come to be considered normal in OECD capitalism after 1945, of reasonably free elections, government by established mass parties, ideally one of the Right and one of the Left, and strong trade unions and employer associations under a firmly institutionalized collective bargaining regime, with legal rights to strike and, sometimes, lock-out. This model reached its peak in the 1970s, after which it began to disintegrate28. The advance of neoliberalism coincided with steadily declining electoral turnout in all countries, rare and short-lived exceptions notwithstanding.

Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government by Robert Higgs, Arthur A. Ekirch, Jr.

Alistair Cooke, American ideology, business cycle, clean water, collective bargaining, creative destruction, credit crunch, declining real wages, endowment effect, fiat currency, fixed income, foreign exchange controls, full employment, Glass-Steagall Act, guns versus butter model, hiring and firing, Ida Tarbell, income per capita, Jones Act, Joseph Schumpeter, laissez-faire capitalism, land bank, manufacturing employment, means of production, military-industrial complex, minimum wage unemployment, plutocrats, post-industrial society, power law, price discrimination, profit motive, rent control, rent-seeking, Richard Thaler, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, Sam Peltzman, Savings and loan crisis, Simon Kuznets, strikebreaker, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, total factor productivity, transaction costs, transcontinental railway, union organizing, Upton Sinclair, War on Poverty, Works Progress Administration

As the old, informally paternalistic relationships declined and a more dynamic, impersonal labor market lurched unpredictably from year to year, misunderstandings and mutual hostility became progressively more common. 41 Labor unions, with their organizational tactics, attempts at collective bargaining, and episodic strikes, galled employers mightily. Many bossesand others, including many workers-questioned the legitimacy of unions as representatives of individual workers. Employers resented the challenge to their prerogatives to manage their own private property and contractual affairs. By the second half of the nineteenth century the courts were generally holding that the mere existence and collective-bargaining activities of unions did not violate the law, but important legal questions remained unsettled, especially those pertaining to the permissible bounds of strikes, picketing, and boycotts.

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Unionists, who ranted about "slave labor" and "involuntary servitude," did not oppose military conscription-surely a more reprehensible form of involuntary servitude than assignment to a safe, well-paid civilian job. Union leaders knew that national service would put an end to genuine collective bargaining and render them personally superfluous. Philip Murray warned the CIO executive board: destroy collective bargaining "and see how effective you will be with your people back home. You will find out how quick they will tell you to go to hell." Businessmen, of course, wanted to retain control over hiring and firing. They also perceived that drafting civilian labor would lead directly to demands for "conscription of profits"-that is, confiscatory taxation-and governmental takeovers of their production facilities. 57 Stimson and those in his camp had little regard for individual liberty in wartime, but they had at least the virtue of moral (immoral?)

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Sometimes workers could be intimidated into staying on the job-once the President threatened to blacklist striking machinists to deny them war-related work and promised that "the draft boards will be instructed to reject any claim of exemption based on your alleged usefulness on war production"-but usually the government correctly perceived that such heavy-handedness would only prove counterproductive. 61 The prevailing policy was the more conciliatory one of supporting union organization and compulsory collective bargaining, the eight-hour day, and union work rules. Employers could be indemnified by cost-plus contracts with governmental procurement agencies. To help resolve some of the larger and more threatening labor-management disputes, Wilson in September 191 7 created the President's Mediation Commission, whose secretary and legal counsel was Felix Frankfurter, a Harvard law professor destined to exert a great influence on public affairs for a long time to come. 62 As the government's involvement in labor relations expanded, it grew more and more confused, finally prompting a reorganization in January 1918 that featured the creation by executive order of a War Labor Administration to be headed by the Secretary of Labor, William B.

Stakeholder Capitalism: A Global Economy That Works for Progress, People and Planet by Klaus Schwab, Peter Vanham

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", "World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, additive manufacturing, agricultural Revolution, air traffic controllers' union, Anthropocene, Apple II, Asian financial crisis, Asperger Syndrome, basic income, Berlin Wall, Big Tech, biodiversity loss, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, blockchain, blue-collar work, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business process, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, car-free, carbon footprint, carbon tax, centre right, clean tech, clean water, cloud computing, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, colonial rule, company town, contact tracing, contact tracing app, Cornelius Vanderbilt, coronavirus, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, COVID-19, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, cryptocurrency, cuban missile crisis, currency peg, cyber-physical system, decarbonisation, demographic dividend, Deng Xiaoping, Diane Coyle, digital divide, don't be evil, European colonialism, Fall of the Berlin Wall, family office, financial innovation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, future of work, gender pay gap, general purpose technology, George Floyd, gig economy, Gini coefficient, global supply chain, global value chain, global village, Google bus, green new deal, Greta Thunberg, high net worth, hiring and firing, housing crisis, income inequality, income per capita, independent contractor, industrial robot, intangible asset, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, invisible hand, James Watt: steam engine, Jeff Bezos, job automation, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, Khan Academy, Kickstarter, labor-force participation, lockdown, low interest rates, low skilled workers, Lyft, manufacturing employment, Marc Benioff, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, Marshall McLuhan, Martin Wolf, means of production, megacity, microplastics / micro fibres, Mikhail Gorbachev, mini-job, mittelstand, move fast and break things, neoliberal agenda, Network effects, new economy, open economy, Peace of Westphalia, Peter Thiel, precariat, Productivity paradox, profit maximization, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, reserve currency, reshoring, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, San Francisco homelessness, School Strike for Climate, self-driving car, seminal paper, shareholder value, Shenzhen special economic zone , Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, social distancing, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, special economic zone, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, synthetic biology, TaskRabbit, The Chicago School, The Future of Employment, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, the scientific method, TikTok, Tim Cook: Apple, trade route, transfer pricing, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, union organizing, universal basic income, War on Poverty, We are the 99%, women in the workforce, working poor, working-age population, Yom Kippur War, young professional, zero-sum game

In the United States, pro-social policies were less en vogue than in Europe, but thanks to the rapid economic growth, more people than ever did ascend to the middle class, and social security programs did grow both in the number of beneficiaries and the overall funds allocated to them, especially in the two decades between 1950 and 1970.15 Median wages rose sharply, and poverty fell. France, Germany, the Benelux countries, and the Scandinavian countries also promoted collective bargaining. In most German companies, for example, the Works Council Act of 1952 determined that one-third of the members of the supervisory board had to be selected by workers. An exception was made for family-owned companies, as ties between the community and management there were typically strong, and social conflict was rarer.

…

He held that the “only social responsibility of business is to increase its profits”20 and that free markets are what matters above all else. (This is discussed further in Chapter 8.) The result was unbalanced growth. Economic growth returned in the 1980s, but an ever smaller part of the population benefited from it, and even more harm was done to the planet to achieve it. Union membership started to decline, and collective bargaining became less common (though much of continental Europe, including Germany, France, and Italy clung to it until the 2000s, and some, like Belgium, still do today). Economic policies in two of the West's leading economies—the United Kingdom and the United States—were largely geared toward deregulation, liberalization, and privatization, and a belief that an invisible hand would lead markets to their optimal state.

…

In 1997, the company management announced that it wished to “introduce a ‘pact for the safeguarding of production sites,’ as a ‘preventive initiative for the maintenance of national and international competitiveness,’” the European Observatory of Working Life wrote in a later case study on the mater.23 The result was the so-called Ravensburger Pact, in which the company offered its employees job security in exchange for concessions. Although the pact was accepted by most workers, it also led to a deterioration in employee-employer relations. The industry union argued it went against collective bargaining agreements for the sector and that it was unnecessary, as the company had good economic performance. In the end, the hotly contested pact made all parties reconsider their relationship to each other. The union, which had typically been weak in the family-owned enterprise, grew stronger, and management took on a more constructive approach to its Works Council going forward.

Stakeholder Capitalism: A Global Economy That Works for Progress, People and Planet by Klaus Schwab

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", "World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, additive manufacturing, agricultural Revolution, air traffic controllers' union, Anthropocene, Apple II, Asian financial crisis, Asperger Syndrome, basic income, Berlin Wall, Big Tech, biodiversity loss, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, blockchain, blue-collar work, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business process, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, car-free, carbon footprint, carbon tax, centre right, clean tech, clean water, cloud computing, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, colonial rule, company town, contact tracing, contact tracing app, Cornelius Vanderbilt, coronavirus, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, COVID-19, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, cryptocurrency, cuban missile crisis, currency peg, cyber-physical system, decarbonisation, demographic dividend, Deng Xiaoping, Diane Coyle, digital divide, don't be evil, European colonialism, Fall of the Berlin Wall, family office, financial innovation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, future of work, gender pay gap, general purpose technology, George Floyd, gig economy, Gini coefficient, global supply chain, global value chain, global village, Google bus, green new deal, Greta Thunberg, high net worth, hiring and firing, housing crisis, income inequality, income per capita, independent contractor, industrial robot, intangible asset, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, invisible hand, James Watt: steam engine, Jeff Bezos, job automation, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, Khan Academy, Kickstarter, labor-force participation, lockdown, low interest rates, low skilled workers, Lyft, manufacturing employment, Marc Benioff, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, Marshall McLuhan, Martin Wolf, means of production, megacity, microplastics / micro fibres, Mikhail Gorbachev, mini-job, mittelstand, move fast and break things, neoliberal agenda, Network effects, new economy, open economy, Peace of Westphalia, Peter Thiel, precariat, Productivity paradox, profit maximization, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, reserve currency, reshoring, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, San Francisco homelessness, School Strike for Climate, self-driving car, seminal paper, shareholder value, Shenzhen special economic zone , Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, social distancing, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, special economic zone, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, synthetic biology, TaskRabbit, The Chicago School, The Future of Employment, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, the scientific method, TikTok, Tim Cook: Apple, trade route, transfer pricing, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, union organizing, universal basic income, War on Poverty, We are the 99%, women in the workforce, working poor, working-age population, Yom Kippur War, young professional, zero-sum game

In the United States, pro-social policies were less en vogue than in Europe, but thanks to the rapid economic growth, more people than ever did ascend to the middle class, and social security programs did grow both in the number of beneficiaries and the overall funds allocated to them, especially in the two decades between 1950 and 1970.15 Median wages rose sharply, and poverty fell. France, Germany, the Benelux countries, and the Scandinavian countries also promoted collective bargaining. In most German companies, for example, the Works Council Act of 1952 determined that one-third of the members of the supervisory board had to be selected by workers. An exception was made for family-owned companies, as ties between the community and management there were typically strong, and social conflict was rarer.

…

He held that the “only social responsibility of business is to increase its profits”20 and that free markets are what matters above all else. (This is discussed further in Chapter 8.) The result was unbalanced growth. Economic growth returned in the 1980s, but an ever smaller part of the population benefited from it, and even more harm was done to the planet to achieve it. Union membership started to decline, and collective bargaining became less common (though much of continental Europe, including Germany, France, and Italy clung to it until the 2000s, and some, like Belgium, still do today). Economic policies in two of the West's leading economies—the United Kingdom and the United States—were largely geared toward deregulation, liberalization, and privatization, and a belief that an invisible hand would lead markets to their optimal state.

…

In 1997, the company management announced that it wished to “introduce a ‘pact for the safeguarding of production sites,’ as a ‘preventive initiative for the maintenance of national and international competitiveness,’” the European Observatory of Working Life wrote in a later case study on the mater.23 The result was the so-called Ravensburger Pact, in which the company offered its employees job security in exchange for concessions. Although the pact was accepted by most workers, it also led to a deterioration in employee-employer relations. The industry union argued it went against collective bargaining agreements for the sector and that it was unnecessary, as the company had good economic performance. In the end, the hotly contested pact made all parties reconsider their relationship to each other. The union, which had typically been weak in the family-owned enterprise, grew stronger, and management took on a more constructive approach to its Works Council going forward.

The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality by Bhaskar Sunkara

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, agricultural Revolution, Bernie Sanders, British Empire, business climate, business cycle, capital controls, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, collective bargaining, Deng Xiaoping, deskilling, Donald Trump, equal pay for equal work, fake news, false flag, feminist movement, Ferguson, Missouri, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, gig economy, Great Leap Forward, Gunnar Myrdal, happiness index / gross national happiness, high-speed rail, Honoré de Balzac, income inequality, inventory management, Jeremy Corbyn, labor-force participation, land reform, land value tax, Mark Zuckerberg, means of production, Meghnad Desai, Mikhail Gorbachev, Neil Kinnock, new economy, Occupy movement, postindustrial economy, precariat, race to the bottom, Ralph Waldo Emerson, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, SimCity, single-payer health, Steve Bannon, telemarketer, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, too big to fail, union organizing, Upton Sinclair, urban renewal, We are all Keynesians now, We are the 99%

But though capitalists could accept active industrial policy, the push to expand workplace democracy was bitterly resisted.19 LO leaders had to contend with a wave of wildcat strikes and were pushed to the left as a result in the early 1970s. The federation began advocating the extension of collective bargaining to noneconomic concerns. The employers organized in the SAF refused any such reform, so labor (both the LO and the white-collar federations) resorted to pushing its demands through social-democratic legislation. With the backing of Palme’s Social Democratic Party, employers were forced to negotiate with unions on just about every workplace issue.

…

Cuban doctors have served millions abroad, and the country played a pivotal role defeating South African apartheid (though its record intervening in the Horn of Africa is less laudable). At the same time, Cuba falls short of any standard of “socialist democracy.” Cuba’s workers don’t have even basic rights to collectively bargain or protest government policies. The 1959 Revolution served to create a new elite, though unlike the country’s old elite, its legitimacy is grounded not in wealth and its relations with Washington but in its offering of free education and quality medical care and other necessities to the people.

…

Democrats also saw their control over state legislatures slip dramatically, from 59 percent at the beginning of Obama’s presidency to 31 percent at its end.8 Rollbacks began in earnest in many Republican-dominated states. The most significant flashpoint was Governor Scott Walker’s attempt to annihilate a century of labor victories in Wisconsin, all in one fell swoop. In 2011, Walker introduced the Budget Repair Bill, which would have hobbled unions by outlawing collective bargaining for public sector workers. It proposed cutting into vital social programs, including Medicare, environmental protections, even public education. The measures provoked resistance—more than a hundred thousand people marched on the state capital, teachers across the state organized “sick outs” to get around rules banning strikes, and protesters occupied the Wisconsin capitol building for two and a half weeks, demanding that Walker step down.

Sleeping Giant: How the New Working Class Will Transform America by Tamara Draut

affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, always be closing, American ideology, antiwork, battle of ideas, big-box store, Black Lives Matter, blue-collar work, collective bargaining, creative destruction, David Brooks, declining real wages, deindustrialization, desegregation, Detroit bankruptcy, Donald Trump, Edward Glaeser, ending welfare as we know it, Ferguson, Missouri, financial deregulation, full employment, gentrification, immigration reform, income inequality, independent contractor, invisible hand, job satisfaction, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, low skilled workers, machine readable, mass incarceration, minimum wage unemployment, mortgage tax deduction, new economy, obamacare, occupational segregation, payday loans, pink-collar, plutocrats, Powell Memorandum, profit motive, public intellectual, race to the bottom, Ralph Nader, rent-seeking, rising living standards, Ronald Reagan, shared worldview, stock buybacks, TED Talk, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trickle-down economics, union organizing, upwardly mobile, War on Poverty, white flight, women in the workforce, young professional

Back when President Franklin Roosevelt signed into law some of the nation’s first labor protections regarding wages and hours, the laws were written to ensure that the majority of jobs worked by African Americans would be exempt—indeed, it was the only way to get the bill passed by a Congress controlled by segregationist southern Democrats.24 While not explicitly carving out an exception for African American workers, the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, which established the right of workers to collective bargaining, and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which established the right to a minimum wage and overtime pay, both specifically exempted agricultural and domestic workers from these rights. Even though caregiving work in the home has become an official part of our economy—and a pretty big one at that, with 2.5 million jobs and fast growth—services provided in the home for pay were essentially not considered “real work” under existing labor law or standards until very recently.

…

In fact, you, reader, may even be thinking to yourself that unions are some kind of industrial-age relic with no relevance in today’s economy—that they’re dying because they make no sense in today’s tech-rich, global-scale economy. So let’s take a quick look back and remind ourselves of what unions have done for American society. The power of unions transcends the collective bargaining done on behalf of their workers. The real power is that through union dues, the labor movement can amass significant resources to engage in voter turnout, agenda setting, and issue advocacy, all on behalf of ordinary Americans. It’s that amassing of political power that is so threatening to conservatives and corporate America.

…

According to Joe, McKesson used to tout that the company had never had one of its facilities vote in a union that started out as McKesson, but that changed in October 2011, when local Teamsters 78 unionized the distribution center in Tampa, Florida. But McKesson isn’t rolling over easily on this one. A tape-recorded session of one of the captive-audience meetings is available online.45 In one of the forty-five-minute sessions, the director of labor relations for McKesson gives a presentation on “how collective bargaining works.” He tells the employees that “if the union gets voted in, everything that you have goes on the table and we negotiate it. So the current wages you have goes on the table, your benefits, your UPTOs [universal paid time off], and all your working conditions go on the table. And through the process of give-and-take, we bargain a contract.

Work Won't Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone by Sarah Jaffe

Ada Lovelace, air traffic controllers' union, Amazon Mechanical Turk, antiwork, barriers to entry, basic income, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, big-box store, Black Lives Matter, blue-collar work, Boris Johnson, call centre, capitalist realism, Charles Babbage, collective bargaining, coronavirus, COVID-19, deindustrialization, delayed gratification, dematerialisation, desegregation, deskilling, do what you love, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, emotional labour, feminist movement, Ferguson, Missouri, financial independence, Frederick Winslow Taylor, fulfillment center, future of work, gamification, gender pay gap, gentrification, George Floyd, gig economy, global pandemic, Grace Hopper, green new deal, hiring and firing, illegal immigration, immigration reform, informal economy, job automation, job satisfaction, job-hopping, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, late capitalism, lockdown, lone genius, Lyft, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, mass incarceration, means of production, mini-job, minimum wage unemployment, move fast and break things, Naomi Klein, new economy, oil shock, Peter Thiel, post-Fordism, post-work, precariat, profit motive, Rana Plaza, Richard Florida, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, school choice, Silicon Valley, social distancing, Steve Jobs, TaskRabbit, tech billionaire, tech worker, traumatic brain injury, uber lyft, union organizing, universal basic income, unpaid internship, W. E. B. Du Bois, wages for housework, War on Poverty, WeWork, women in the workforce, work culture , workplace surveillance , Works Progress Administration

It is less that these apps create a new form of unreliable, low-wage work, and more that new technology is facilitating a very old type of work arrangement. Yet domestic workers have also been some of the first to figure out how to collectively organize app-based work. In Denmark, the 3F union managed to win a collective bargaining agreement with a platform that provides cleaning workers to private homes. Workers will be considered employees of the platform—something that most of the bigger app-based services have fought strenuously against—and gain minimum-wage protections, job security, and unemployment benefits in case of illness, as well as something crucial for app-based workers, often called out at the touch of a button: 50 percent pay if the job is canceled less than thirty-six hours before it begins. 47 Organizing has been difficult for domestic workers precisely because they have individual, one-on-one relationships with employers; the standardization of services like Merry Maids or the apps at least offers some hint of a way that the workers can come together to pressure the boss, something like the way home care workers have been able to bargain with governments at the state level.

…

Still, male administrators retained control, and male-dominated legislatures—elected by male voters (women did not yet have that right)—decided where schools would be and how much would be spent on them. These men had no intention of letting women teachers have a say. 7 Without the right to vote, and without the legal, formalized collective bargaining that would come much later, teachers needed the support of the broader community behind their demands. They were able to use the close relationships they built with students, as well as their reputation for selflessness, to build bonds inside and outside of the classroom that enabled them to win improvements in the schools.

…

At the same time, the Lyndon Johnson administration moved to recruit students from elite schools to do short-term teaching stints, a strategy that flipped the earlier image of teachers on its head: rather than committed, caring educators, all this strategy offered students was a brief encounter with the highly educated, who would then presumably move on. 28 The tensions within the teaching profession came to a head in Ocean Hill–Brownsville in Brooklyn in 1968, where the old Teachers Union style of community organizing came up against a new style of unionism. Militant and surging unions were winning collective bargaining rights, and the hard-charging United Federation of Teachers (UFT), having won the right to represent all of New York City’s teaching force through a strike, wound up clashing with Black community activists. The UFT was focused on the “bread-and-butter” needs of teachers. Meanwhile, frustrated with desegregation efforts implying that Black children were deficient and Black teachers incompetent, Black community organizers were agitating for community control of schools, arguing that it was racism, not Black deficiency, that left Black students underachieving.

Hustle and Gig: Struggling and Surviving in the Sharing Economy by Alexandrea J. Ravenelle

active transport: walking or cycling, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, air traffic controllers' union, Airbnb, Amazon Mechanical Turk, barriers to entry, basic income, Broken windows theory, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, cashless society, Clayton Christensen, clean water, collaborative consumption, collective bargaining, company town, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, digital divide, disruptive innovation, Downton Abbey, East Village, Erik Brynjolfsson, full employment, future of work, gentrification, gig economy, Howard Zinn, income inequality, independent contractor, informal economy, job automation, John Zimmer (Lyft cofounder), low skilled workers, Lyft, minimum wage unemployment, Mitch Kapor, Network effects, new economy, New Urbanism, obamacare, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, passive income, peer-to-peer, peer-to-peer model, performance metric, precariat, rent control, rent stabilization, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, sharing economy, side hustle, Silicon Valley, strikebreaker, TaskRabbit, TED Talk, telemarketer, the payments system, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Tim Cook: Apple, transaction costs, Travis Kalanick, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, ubercab, universal basic income, Upton Sinclair, urban planning, vertical integration, very high income, white flight, working poor, Zipcar

Even before the American Revolution, there were small strikes among New York City cartmen, in 1677, and bakers, in 1741.4 Yet, while the United States was still in its infancy as a colony of Great Britain, labor unrest remained short-lived and isolated. Seeking the “pursuit of happiness” through higher pay and shorter hours, New York printers went on strike in 1794, cabinet makers in 1796, Philadelphia carpenters in 1797, and shoemakers in 1799.5 In the early 1800s, when workers tried to use collective bargaining power to obtain increased wages, decreased hours, or just generally improved conditions, they faced the threat of indictment and prosecution for criminal conspiracy. Although the United States did not have specific laws against worker organizing, early American courts followed British common law: when two or more workers plotted the harm of a third, or of the public, they could be indicted on a charge of criminal conspiracy.

…

In the first half of the nineteenth century, workers in at least twenty-three cases were indicted and generally convicted for criminal conspiracy in Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.7 Most were found guilty but were given relatively small fines as a “testimonial to the temper of the people,” even as the guilty findings demonstrated an intention to “drive unionism out of American life.”8 However, workers continued to organize, and by 1810—less than twenty years after the first trade union was established in America—some unions had already established collective bargaining; minimum wage demands; a “closed,” or union, shop; unity between skilled and unskilled workers; and solidarity between different unions.9 The economic depression of 1819–1822 destroyed those unions that had managed to survive strikes and conspiracy charges, but the mid- to late 1820s heralded a resurgence of worker organizing.

…

Nationwide, by the end of 1932, there were 330 self-help organizations in thirty-seven states, with more than three hundred thousand members, although as the economy deteriorated further those organizations, too, collapsed.22 In 1934, 1.5 million workers went on strike, including longshoremen on the West Coast, 325,000 southern textile workers, and 2,500 Lowell mill workers. In 1935, the Wagner Act was passed, which established a National Labor Relations Board and gave employees the right to form and join unions and engage in collective bargaining and strikes. Then, in 1938, President Roosevelt signed into law the Fair Labor Standards Act, which banned oppressive child labor, set the minimum hourly wage at twenty-five cents and the maximum workweek at forty-four hours (later shortened to forty hours under the Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1966).23 The Wagner Act was challenged by steel corporations, but the Supreme Court found it to be constitutional on the basis of the federal government’s right to regulate interstate commerce, which was hurt by strikes.

Our 50-State Border Crisis: How the Mexican Border Fuels the Drug Epidemic Across America by Howard G. Buffett

airport security, clean water, collective bargaining, defense in depth, Donald Trump, illegal immigration, immigration reform, linked data, low skilled workers, moral panic, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, pill mill

However, the armed agents patrolling our borders should belong to a category of “excepted service” similar to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the U.S. Secret Service. These and another three dozen or so agencies are excepted from the U.S. government’s “competitive service” process. They have their own hiring and evaluation systems and security clearance processes, and several are legally prohibited from collective bargaining agreements. Today, collective bargaining agreements limit our ability to respond to the shifting tactics and surges of drug smugglers and other criminals infiltrating our border. Technically, CBP is America’s largest law enforcement agency, but we have to embrace the fundamental basis of the mission: Patrolling our borders effectively today, when drug and human smugglers may be armed with automatic weapons and sophisticated communication networks, demands a combination of law enforcement, intelligence gathering, and foreign adversary engagement skills and tactics beyond basic law enforcement.

…

The Associated Press did an analysis that year showing that on one single day, June 14, 2,500 agents were on duty in the San Diego sector and that sector arrested ninety-seven immigrants illegally crossing the border. Meanwhile, 3,200 agents in the Rio Grande Valley made 1,422 arrests (and who knows how many people crossed our border undetected?).2 Border security goals are compromised when collective bargaining agreements dictate the conditions under which officers can be transferred, promoted, and, to a certain degree, deployed. Under collective bargaining agreements, agents can file appeals to transfer, and other rules can prevent a strategically important operating facility from being staffed—as has happened for more than six years near our Mission Oaks Ranch in Arizona.

…

And the job of responding to that criticism and representing agents charged with a difficult mission over vast amounts of territory has been taken up by a very aggressive union, the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC), which has represented Border Patrol agents since 1967. Because of what I see as a conflict between BP’s unusual dual law enforcement and national security mission, I think collective bargaining agreements are an obstacle to Border Patrol being more effective. “How do you deploy personnel in an emergency when the union rep is looking over your shoulder?” asks one law enforcement veteran in Arizona. The first issue involves flexibility. Former chiefs and supervisors have told me that union rules put strict requirements on the transferring and deployment of agents, such as how much notice they must be given before a transfer takes place, compensation for travel, specified rotation schedules off the actual border, and other tactical changes.

Occupying Wall Street: The Inside Story of an Action That Changed America by Writers For The 99%

Bay Area Rapid Transit, citizen journalism, collective bargaining, Day of the Dead, desegregation, feminist movement, gentrification, Glass-Steagall Act, income inequality, independent contractor, intentional community, it's over 9,000, McMansion, microaggression, Mohammed Bouazizi, Occupy movement, Port of Oakland, We are the 99%, young professional

Indeed, OWS and the burgeoning student movement it fostered provided a lucrative opportunity for the labor movement to stage a broader-based counter-attack against owners’ increasingly hard-line tactics at the bargaining table, as well as the renewed threats against collective bargaining in statehouses nationwide. Maida Rosenstein, president of United Auto Workers Local 2110, said, “We in the UAW had been talking about how do we mobilize people and our members not just electronically? How do we mobilize people to get out and protest and rally and demonstrate?” The protests against Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s attacks on collective bargaining rights in February of 2011, in which students and union workers occupied the State Capitol in Madison before erecting a tent city, served as an important precedent.

…

Three days later, on February 14, the first wave of popular unrest in the U.S. shook the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison and quickly reached nearby college campuses and the cities of Milwaukee, Green Bay, and Columbus, Ohio. The revolt had a specific target—the Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill, which also limited collective bargaining rights–but some protesters brandished Egyptian flags. On February 20, Egyptian union leader Kamal Abbas posted a YouTube video encouraging the “workers in Wisconsin.” “We stand with you as you stood with us,” he said. By summer, the uprisings had spread to Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Europe.

…

Many student activists in New York Students Rising were members of Communication Workers of America (CWA) graduate employee locals. They had been active in the March 4 Day of Action earlier that year against tuition hikes, departmental cuts and other attacks on Higher Education that a growing number of students understood to be connected to the nationwide attacks on collective bargaining and the U.S. working class. NYU students have also been involved in local union fights, lending support to adjunct faculty contract negotiations (the adjunct faculty at NYU and the New School are both represented by UAW Local 7902), the Teamsters art-handlers who are currently locked out of Sotheby’s and Stella D’Oro workers.

The Gig Economy: The Complete Guide to Getting Better Work, Taking More Time Off, and Financing the Life You Want by Diane Mulcahy

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, Amazon Mechanical Turk, basic income, Clayton Christensen, cognitive bias, collective bargaining, creative destruction, David Brooks, deliberate practice, digital nomad, diversification, diversified portfolio, fear of failure, financial independence, future of work, gig economy, helicopter parent, Home mortgage interest deduction, housing crisis, independent contractor, job satisfaction, Kickstarter, loss aversion, low interest rates, low skilled workers, Lyft, mass immigration, mental accounting, minimum wage unemployment, mortgage tax deduction, negative equity, passive income, Paul Graham, remote working, risk tolerance, Robert Shiller, seminal paper, Silicon Valley, Snapchat, social contagion, TaskRabbit, TED Talk, the strength of weak ties, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, universal basic income, wage slave, WeWork, Y Combinator, Zipcar

He calls his proposal “libertarianism with a safety net.”15 Allow Contractors to Collectively Bargain The National Labor Relations Act applies only to employees, thus excluding independent contractors from the ability to bargain collectively. In the past, contractor attempts to unionize and bargain have been thwarted by invoking antitrust laws. The argument is that contractors who collectively bargain to set common rates are essentially colluding, which violates antitrust laws. However, in December 2015, the Seattle City Council voted to extend collective bargaining rights to Uber and Lyft drivers.16 In March, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce sued the city of Seattle, saying that the ordinance violates antitrust laws.17 California is expected to introduce a similar bill covering independent contractors who work on on-demand platforms.

…

Manager schedules car payments cash flow, negative categorizing workers, eliminating Center for a New American Dream survey certifications Certified Financial Planner (CFP) Board checkbook diagnostic exercise Christakis, Nicholas Christensen, Clayton Clark, Dorie Reinventing You Stand Out cognitive biases cognitive resources collective bargaining, by contractors college graduates, unemployment and underemployment comfort zone Comment step in speaking in writing commitment dropping or reducing exit strategy from connecting without networking inbound connecting offer and ask outbound connecting consulting pricing strategy Consumer Federation of America contractors autonomy of collective bargaining by eliminating category vs. employees pricing strategy savings plans contracts corporate ladder corporate time suck costs of full-time employees of home ownership Create step in speaking in writing credentials-based economy, vs. skill-based Curate step in speaking in writing curated groups daily work schedule Dash exercise debt from education perspectives on decisions, either/or vs. and deferred life plan delegating denial, job security and Department of Labor (DoL) dependent contractor Dickson, Peter digital nomads directors and officers (D&O) insurance disability insurance disability issues, leaving work involuntarily diversifying expertise and portfolio of gigs risk of excess Doodle “double opt-in,” for introductions downsizing dream job Eagleman, David earned income education accessing debt from elevator pitch Ellis, Linda, “The Dash” Employee Mindset employee-in-a-job model employees advantages of being vs. contractors corporate benefits impact of Gig Economy learned helplessness about time prorated and portable benefits tax rate employers contribution retirement plans student loan repayment benefits tax compliance rate end dates, negotiating Entrepreneur Magazine equity in home ownership Ernst & Young eulogy virtues Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation exercises calendar diagnostic checkbook diagnostic on priorities exit strategy creation facing fears and reducing risks finding gigs personal burn rate surrogation and success taking year off vision of success defined vision of success refined exit strategy creating for leaving job for reducing uncertainty for startup Expensify experimenting, gigs for expertise, diversification and failure, expecting and preparing for fear exercise for facing facing fee-only financial planner financial flexibility corporate perks in increasing with more income from low personal burn rate planning from savings and time off financial team, for independent workers finding gigs exercises Fitbit fixed costs income security from low flexibility debt and ownership impact see also financial flexibility Forbes 401(k) Fowler, James Fox, Jessica, Three Things You Need to Know About Rockets Framingham Heart Study, social connections Freelancer Freelancers Union FreshBooks full-time employees job disappearance as last resort fundraising Gabriel, Allison Gaignard, Jayson, Mastermind Dinners Gallup poll Generation X Gig Economy finding gigs of future good work vs. good job growth labor issues MBA course newness of pitch for outbound connect retirement to mix work and leisure rules for success size of Gilbert, Daniel giving time away Gladwell, Malcolm, Outliers Glassdoor, Employee Confidence Survey goal creep “good jobs,” future of The Good Jobs Strategy (Ton) government positions, layoffs Graham, Paul Granovetter, Mark Great Generation (65 and older) Groupon Gupta, Prerna Hanauer, Nick Handy, Charles happiness Harford, Tim Harvard Business Review Harvard Joint Center on Housing Studies Harvard Study of Adult Development health insurance health issues, leaving work involuntarily healthcare costs in retirement help from others Hill, Steven Raw Deal hindsight, power of home ownership vs. access to home impact on middle class myths of real costs Honest Dollar hosting, inbound connecting through Huffington, Arianna hyperbolic discounting “in-between space,” time off to create income security from low fixed costs from multiple income sources from opportunities pipeline from skills building supplemental income in retirement independent workers eligibility for retirement savings financial management savings plans self-insure for unemployment Individual 401(k) inflation information gathering interest, tax deduction for Internal Revenue Service on employee vs. contractor income tax forms, Schedule C interruptions, schedule free of introductions, asking for Intuit investment interval IRA job hunting job interview, time off explanation in job security jobbatical.com jobs, transition to work JP Morgan Chase Kasser, Tim, The High Price of Materialism Katz, Larry Kickstarter Kitces, Michael Kreider, Tim Krueger, Alan Krueger, Norris, Jr.

The Globalization of Inequality by François Bourguignon

Berlin Wall, Branko Milanovic, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, collective bargaining, Credit Default Swap, deglobalization, deindustrialization, Doha Development Round, Edward Glaeser, European colonialism, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial deregulation, financial intermediation, gender pay gap, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, income inequality, income per capita, labor-force participation, liberal capitalism, low interest rates, minimum wage unemployment, offshore financial centre, open economy, Pareto efficiency, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, Robert Gordon, Simon Kuznets, structural adjustment programs, The Spirit Level, too big to fail, very high income, Washington Consensus

It is not clear that the countries that went in the direction of the first option by deregulating their labor markets necessarily ended up with increased inequality as a result. Other labor market institutions have a more direct impact on inequality. The first of these I will examine will be collective bargaining for wages and the role of unions. Nearly all developed economies, with the exception of those in Belgium and some Scandinavian countries, have seen a conspicuous drop in the power of unions and a commensurate decrease in the role of collective bargaining. There are several explanations for this evolution. There was, of course, the fact that certain governments, like those of Reagan and Thatcher, were hostile to union activity— which, as we remember, was played out rather spectacularly with regard to air traffic controllers in one case and miners in the other.

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France is one of the rare countries in which, according to the OECD, the employment 100 Chapter 3 protection laws have become stronger over this period, albeit only slightly. There are various other ways besides these employment protection laws that the labor market is regulated, including through the role of unions and collective bargaining, social contributions, or wage deductions, and payroll charges imposed on employees and employers, unemployment compensation and, of course, minimum wage laws. It turns out that in a large number of developed countries, one or more of these methods for regulating the labor market have been significantly reformed over the last twenty or thirty years.

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Over time, competition eroded existing rents and therefore management’s room to maneuver and the negotiating power of unions. At the same time, deindustrialization was shrinking the most traditional sphere of labor union activity, pushing unions into making major structural changes. And, finally, disinflation radically reduced the utility of collective bargaining in determining salary levels. In a high-­inflation world, workers and employers find it dif­ficult to negotiate on an individual basis, without explicit reference to the way other workers’ salaries are adjusted for inflation, which creates a clear opportunity for the unions to coordinate wage negotiations.

Stolen: How to Save the World From Financialisation by Grace Blakeley

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, asset-backed security, balance sheet recession, bank run, banking crisis, banks create money, Basel III, basic income, battle of ideas, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Big Tech, bitcoin, bond market vigilante , Bretton Woods, business cycle, call centre, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, capitalist realism, Carmen Reinhart, central bank independence, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collective bargaining, corporate governance, corporate raider, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, cryptocurrency, currency peg, David Graeber, debt deflation, decarbonisation, democratizing finance, Donald Trump, emotional labour, eurozone crisis, Extinction Rebellion, extractivism, Fall of the Berlin Wall, falling living standards, financial deregulation, financial innovation, Financial Instability Hypothesis, financial intermediation, fixed income, full employment, G4S, gender pay gap, gig economy, Gini coefficient, global reserve currency, global supply chain, green new deal, Greenspan put, housing crisis, Hyman Minsky, impact investing, income inequality, inflation targeting, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Jeremy Corbyn, job polarisation, junk bonds, Kenneth Rogoff, Kickstarter, land value tax, light touch regulation, low interest rates, low skilled workers, market clearing, means of production, Modern Monetary Theory, money market fund, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, mortgage debt, negative equity, neoliberal agenda, new economy, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, paradox of thrift, payday loans, pensions crisis, Phillips curve, Ponzi scheme, Post-Keynesian economics, post-war consensus, price mechanism, principal–agent problem, profit motive, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, regulatory arbitrage, reserve currency, Right to Buy, rising living standards, risk-adjusted returns, road to serfdom, Robert Solow, savings glut, secular stagnation, shareholder value, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, sovereign wealth fund, the built environment, The Great Moderation, too big to fail, transfer pricing, universal basic income, Winter of Discontent, working-age population, yield curve, zero-sum game

The destruction of the war, the increasing size of the state, and the arrival of Bretton Woods led to something of a rebalancing in the power of labour relative to capital within the states of the global North.9 The rising political power of domestic labour movements led to the widespread take up of Keynes’ ideas, which were, after all, aimed at preventing recessions and unemployment. States and unions often developed close relationships with one another via emerging mass parties representing labour, and many had a centralised collective bargaining process. Taxes on the wealthy and on corporations were high — underpinned by low levels of capital mobility — and societies became much more equal. During this time, many Keynesians believed that they had finally succeeded in taming the excesses of a capitalist system that had caused so much destruction in the preceding decades, which is why this period was termed the golden age of capitalism, following the gilded age of the pre-war years.

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Pursuing a more conciliatory approach, Harold Wilson raised the miners’ wages and attempted to implement a “social contract” between capital and labour, involving a voluntary incomes policy in which the government negotiated pay increases with the unions. But the second oil price spike — which came three years after the UK had sought an emergency loan from the International Monetary Fund — was the nail in the coffin of the social contract. In 1979, with inflation spiralling once again, the unions pushed for a return to free collective bargaining. 1979 was the coldest winter since 1962, and the combination of industrial action, economic stagnation, and energy shortages led to its being termed the “Winter of Discontent”. A sense of crisis hung in the air. In January 1979, Prime Minister James Callaghan was at a summit in Guadeloupe and was asked by a journalist about “the mounting chaos in the country”.

…

The war that had followed these events had empowered the state to levels never previously seen in history, and these states had used their power to constrain the activities of the international financiers who were sponsoring the event. The MPS objected to any state intervention that stood in the way of free markets. They were deeply offended by the creation of the National Health Service and the introduction of a social safety net. The rise of the unions and the role of the state in supporting collective bargaining were equally significant affronts to neoliberal ideology. But perhaps the most egregious aspect of the post-war consensus was the continued existence of capital controls. Allowing the state to determine where an individual could put their money was seen by some as a threat to human liberty, and to others simply as a barrier to profitability.

What Went Wrong: How the 1% Hijacked the American Middle Class . . . And What Other Countries Got Right by George R. Tyler

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", "World Economic Forum" Davos, 8-hour work day, active measures, activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alan Greenspan, bank run, banking crisis, Basel III, Bear Stearns, behavioural economics, benefit corporation, Black Swan, blood diamond, blue-collar work, Bolshevik threat, bonus culture, British Empire, business cycle, business process, buy and hold, capital controls, Carmen Reinhart, carried interest, cognitive dissonance, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, commoditize, company town, compensation consultant, corporate governance, corporate personhood, corporate raider, corporate social responsibility, creative destruction, credit crunch, crony capitalism, crowdsourcing, currency manipulation / currency intervention, David Brooks, David Graeber, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, declining real wages, deindustrialization, Diane Coyle, disruptive innovation, Double Irish / Dutch Sandwich, eurozone crisis, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial innovation, fixed income, Ford Model T, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, George Akerlof, George Gilder, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, Gordon Gekko, Greenspan put, hiring and firing, Ida Tarbell, income inequality, independent contractor, invisible hand, job satisfaction, John Markoff, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, junk bonds, Kenneth Rogoff, labor-force participation, laissez-faire capitalism, lake wobegon effect, light touch regulation, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, manufacturing employment, market clearing, market fundamentalism, Martin Wolf, minimum wage unemployment, mittelstand, Money creation, moral hazard, Myron Scholes, Naomi Klein, Northern Rock, obamacare, offshore financial centre, Paul Samuelson, Paul Volcker talking about ATMs, pension reform, performance metric, Pershing Square Capital Management, pirate software, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, precariat, price stability, profit maximization, profit motive, prosperity theology / prosperity gospel / gospel of success, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, Ralph Nader, rent-seeking, reshoring, Richard Thaler, rising living standards, road to serfdom, Robert Gordon, Robert Shiller, rolling blackouts, Ronald Reagan, Sand Hill Road, Savings and loan crisis, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, South Sea Bubble, sovereign wealth fund, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, stock buybacks, subprime mortgage crisis, The Chicago School, The Spirit Level, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, transcontinental railway, transfer pricing, trickle-down economics, tulip mania, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, union organizing, Upton Sinclair, upwardly mobile, women in the workforce, working poor, zero-sum game

Stagnant and declining wages are the new reality that makes Tim’s experience a common one, including surprisingly low wages, even in union shops or for higher technology jobs requiring college degrees and intensive training. Unionization has been integral to higher wages, and still is; in 2010, for example, unionized manufacturing workers in Indiana earned 16 percent more than nonunion employees. Union membership began eroding in 1965. But the benefits to the middle class of collective bargaining began to fall most sharply after 1980 as a new breed of executives began utilizing the Taft-Hartley Act to weaken unions and wages while stepping up the offshoring of high-value manufacturing jobs.6 Desperate to attract new jobs amid recession and rising imports, the UAW and other industrial unions reluctantly began to accept two-tier wage structures during the 1980s.

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This requires … top-notch management skills that would innovate and capture opportunities.”36 The urgency of upskilling drives an inclusive education system where “every Australian is offered the opportunity to succeed and reach their full potential,” explained Chris Evans, Australian Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Jobs and Workplace Relations in November 2010. And it drives a business culture in which expectations are a “fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay, the right of employees to collectively bargain with their employer and the right to safe and fair working conditions.”37 For nearly a century, Australian voters have repeatedly made clear they want those expectations to be met by the business community and to be monitored by an alert trade union network and public sector. They demand that conservative and liberal governments alike implement those expectations, with a nationwide comprehensive bargaining and wage system overseen by the federal government as the day-to-day guarantor of Australian family prosperity.

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Another factor has been the failure of Washington officials to mimic the tactics of the family capitalism countries in ameliorating the impact of globalization. Economists cite three other significant factors: employer collusion to limit wage increases, the sagging minimum wage, and the weakening of employee collective bargaining power.42 Employer Collusion to Minimize Wages Even blue-chip enterprises cross the line in colluding to suppress wages. For example, the Obama administration’s Department of Justice settled two antitrust lawsuits in 2010, in which several leading high-tech firms agreed to pay penalties for conspiring against their own highly skilled artisans.

Reskilling America: Learning to Labor in the Twenty-First Century by Katherine S. Newman, Hella Winston

active measures, blue-collar work, business cycle, collective bargaining, Computer Numeric Control, deindustrialization, desegregation, factory automation, high-speed rail, information security, intentional community, interchangeable parts, invisible hand, job-hopping, knowledge economy, longitudinal study, low skilled workers, performance metric, proprietary trading, reshoring, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, social intelligence, two tier labour market, union organizing, upwardly mobile, W. E. B. Du Bois, War on Poverty, Wolfgang Streeck, working poor

Companies gain from the investment they make in training low-skilled employees who they don’t want to lose; employers gain from the regulation of wages, which means very productive workers are paid less than they would be in a more flexible employment system.2 As we have seen, unions are also important, as they can shape how firms train and then subsequently employ workers. Also with highly centralized collective bargaining, unions and business groups are better positioned to lobby the state to enact policies that promote vocational training.3 Beginning at age sixteen, German students in the vocational and educational training (VET) sector attend school one or two days a week and spend the rest of the week in the workplace.

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Works councils in every plant oversee the decision making on all aspects of plant operations. All employees below the level of senior management are represented in the councils, and they are paralleled by the trade unions, who appoint shop stewards whose main responsibilities involve provisions of the collective bargaining contracts. A Europe-wide works council deals with agreements that go beyond workplace policy. In 2002, the European Works Council developed a social rights charter and a platform that guarantees freedom of assembly. These are rights taken for granted in Europe, but in China, where VW was interested in setting up a number of new production facilities, this was hardly the case.

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Some German unions are strong enough to insist that companies like Volkswagen adopt governing structures in the United States that look like the ones they are used to at home. This requirement was put to the test in 2014, when the VW plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, narrowly failed to adopt the United Auto Workers as its representatives for collective bargaining. The plant, which opened in 2008, first became the subject of controversy in 2013 after the UAW attempted to unionize the labor force, drawing opposition from right-wing politicians and others who feared such a move would deter other businesses from setting up shop in the state. In that right-to-work state, many workers were just as resistant to the entreaties of the UAW.24 Ultimately the union vote (narrowly) failed, but in November 2014 VW—apparently under pressure from its labor union in Germany—announced a new policy that would allow employees to be represented by several labor groups, among them the UAW.25 The new rules require that at least 15 percent of the workforce must join up for their union to have some level of representation.

The Great Divergence: America's Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do About It by Timothy Noah

air traffic controllers' union, Alan Greenspan, assortative mating, autonomous vehicles, Bear Stearns, blue-collar work, Bonfire of the Vanities, Branko Milanovic, business cycle, call centre, carbon tax, collective bargaining, compensation consultant, computer age, corporate governance, Credit Default Swap, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, Deng Xiaoping, easy for humans, difficult for computers, Erik Brynjolfsson, Everybody Ought to Be Rich, feminist movement, Ford Model T, Frank Levy and Richard Murnane: The New Division of Labor, Gini coefficient, government statistician, Gunnar Myrdal, income inequality, independent contractor, industrial robot, invisible hand, It's morning again in America, job automation, Joseph Schumpeter, longitudinal study, low skilled workers, lump of labour, manufacturing employment, moral hazard, oil shock, pattern recognition, Paul Samuelson, performance metric, positional goods, post-industrial society, postindustrial economy, proprietary trading, purchasing power parity, refrigerator car, rent control, Richard Feynman, Ronald Reagan, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, subprime mortgage crisis, The Spirit Level, too big to fail, trickle-down economics, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, union organizing, upwardly mobile, very high income, Vilfredo Pareto, War on Poverty, We are the 99%, women in the workforce, Works Progress Administration, Yom Kippur War

The next day three members of Walmart’s “labor relations team” arrived from the company’s headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, and called a store-wide meeting (even though Noble was trying only to organize the tire and lube department). Company videos and PowerPoint presentations were shown. As Noble later recalled, one message was that “wages could be cut drastically” in collective bargaining. “People were giving me dirty looks,” Sylvia remembered. “I’m the only [union supporter] there, and they’re all staring at me like I’m the demon person from hell.” The labor relations team continued to hold similar meetings until the union vote took place in February. Meanwhile Noble, Sylvia, and the other pro-union employees weren’t permitted to discuss the union at all while they were on company property.

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They did it because they had to, a circumstance wholly unimaginable today. The following year, Eric Johnston, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, made a statement whose spirit of conciliation would likely get any current Chamber president fired: “Labor unions are woven into our economic pattern of American life, and collective bargaining is a part of the democratic process. I say recognize this fact not only with our lips but with our hearts.” No smelling salts were needed to revive any who heard it.6 After a century of struggle, unions had won acceptance as an inevitable component to the modern industrial economy. America’s labor movement stood at the summit of its power.

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Then, in 1933, the National Industrial Recovery Act guaranteed the right of employees to join unions. Even though there was little the government could do to protect that right, the law’s passage stirred the rank and file to action. In 1935 the Wagner Act, often described as labor’s Magna Carta, established unions’ right to engage in collective bargaining and created the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to protect that right. Reuther’s beating two years later received prominent attention at an NLRB hearing on Henry Ford’s union-busting tactics, and the NLRB ordered Ford to desist. After Ford resisted the NLRB ruling in the courts, a UAW-organized strike at the Ford plant in 1941 persuaded the company to surrender.

Trade Wars Are Class Wars: How Rising Inequality Distorts the Global Economy and Threatens International Peace by Matthew C. Klein

Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, Asian financial crisis, asset allocation, asset-backed security, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business climate, business cycle, capital controls, centre right, collective bargaining, currency manipulation / currency intervention, currency peg, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deglobalization, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, Double Irish / Dutch Sandwich, Fall of the Berlin Wall, falling living standards, financial innovation, financial repression, fixed income, full employment, George Akerlof, global supply chain, global value chain, Great Leap Forward, high-speed rail, illegal immigration, income inequality, intangible asset, invention of the telegraph, joint-stock company, land reform, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, Malcom McLean invented shipping containers, manufacturing employment, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, Mikhail Gorbachev, Money creation, money market fund, mortgage debt, New Urbanism, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, offshore financial centre, oil shock, open economy, paradox of thrift, passive income, reserve currency, rising living standards, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, savings glut, Scramble for Africa, sovereign wealth fund, stock buybacks, subprime mortgage crisis, The Nature of the Firm, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Tim Cook: Apple, trade liberalization, Wolfgang Streeck

Union membership, which had dropped by a third from 1991 to 2000, fell by another 25 percent from 2000 to 2010. This has gone hand in hand with a collapse in the share of German workers covered by collective bargaining: whereas more than 80 percent of German workers had been covered by collective bargaining in the mid-1990s, fewer than 45 percent of German workers are covered by a collective bargaining agreement today. Economists estimate that “Germany’s wages in 2008 would have been higher if union coverage had remained the same as in 1995 throughout the entire wage distribution, but the difference is particularly large at the lower end of the wage distribution.”

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After subtracting inflation, the median wage of manufacturing workers in the former West Germany grew just 5 percent in total between 1991 and 2000. These developments meant that unions were less useful to German workers than in the past, and membership plunged by a third in the 1990s. At the same time, industrywide collective bargains were watered down with so-called opening clauses that gave local union representatives the option to negotiate bespoke deals at the company level. By the end of the 1990s, most of the remaining German union members were working under these looser contracts. The unions’ priority was to preserve jobs at the cost of forgoing pay raises.

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Economists estimate that “Germany’s wages in 2008 would have been higher if union coverage had remained the same as in 1995 throughout the entire wage distribution, but the difference is particularly large at the lower end of the wage distribution.” Fig. 5.5 Verteilungskampf (share of German national income going to the top 10 percent). Source: Charlotte Bartels via the World Inequality Database Inequality even rose within the ranks of the unionized thanks to the replacement of sectorwide collective bargaining with bespoke agreements negotiated by individual “works councils.” Real wages in the upper portion of the distribution grew while incomes for workers in the bottom half fell. The combined result, according to one study, is that “income concentration at the top decile in Germany today is even greater than it was during the industrialization period of 1871–1913.”39 This concentration of income was substantial enough to depress German household spending.

Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire by Noam Chomsky, David Barsamian

"World Economic Forum" Davos, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Albert Einstein, American ideology, Chelsea Manning, collective bargaining, colonial rule, corporate personhood, David Brooks, discovery of DNA, double helix, drone strike, failed state, Great Leap Forward, Herbert Marcuse, high-speed rail, Howard Zinn, hydraulic fracturing, income inequality, inflation targeting, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Julian Assange, land reform, language acquisition, Martin Wolf, Mohammed Bouazizi, Naomi Klein, Nelson Mandela, new economy, no-fly zone, obamacare, Occupy movement, oil shale / tar sands, pattern recognition, Powell Memorandum, public intellectual, quantitative easing, Ralph Nader, Ralph Waldo Emerson, single-payer health, sovereign wealth fund, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, theory of mind, Tobin tax, union organizing, Upton Sinclair, uranium enrichment, WikiLeaks

Over time, this campaign had some success, but a majority of the workforce would still prefer to be unionized if they could be.7 Barriers have been set up by state policy which make it very hard to join a union.8 The consequence of all this is that private-sector unionization is down to about 7 percent.9 Public-sector unions still haven’t been destroyed, but that’s why there is a bitter attack against them right now. The attack in Wisconsin on the right of workers to organize and collectively bargain is a clear example.10 The issues in Wisconsin have nothing to do with the state budget deficit. That’s a fraud that’s simply used as a pretext. The issue is the right of collective bargaining, one of the basic principles of union organization. The business world wants to destroy that. Rhetoric aside, has the Democratic Party really been a friend of organized labor and the working class?

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., 7, 58, 70, 90, 110, 153 Iraq War, 16, 56, 114–16 response to 9/11, 15–26 war crimes, 114–16 business, 25, 36, 38, 39, 40, 76–77, 81, 103, 123, 169 Butler, Smedley, 13, 14 California, 167, 172 campaign finance, 173–74 Canada, 24, 73, 161–64 capitalism, 77–78, 147, 170–73 Caribbean, 7, 161 Carlos the Jackal, (Ilich Ramírez Sánchez), 21 Carothers, Thomas, 62, 64 Carter, Jimmy, 151 Ceauescu, Nicolae, 17 CELAC, 161 Central America, 21, 36 natural resources, 17–18 Chace, James, 61 Chavis, Benjamin, 65 children, 38, 82, 83 language acquisition in, 126–36 Chile, 61 China, 7–10, 50, 57, 77, 106, 107, 164, 169 ecological problems, 12 economic growth, 7–13 -India relations, 20–22 industry, 11–13 labor, 9–12 “loss of,” 57, 60 Maoist, 12 Chun Doo-hwan, 17 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 173–74 civil liberties, 69–73, 175 military detention and, 70–73 civil rights movement, 24, 30–31, 45, 65–66, 72, 150, 167, 176 climate change, 75, 121–25, 159 Clinton, Bill, 58, 83, 90, 170 Clinton, Hillary, 162 COINTELPRO, 73, 74, 120 collective bargaining, 40–41 Colombia, 7, 72, 145, 160, 164 colonialism, 3–5, 9, 46, 51 Communist Party, 23–24, 27, 29, 75, 118 Congress, U.S., 27, 32, 41–42, 85 Congress of Industrial Organizations, 23, 68 consensus, 74–75 Constitution, U.S., 72, 85, 174–75 consumerism, 36, 37, 80 corporations, 10, 24, 26, 27, 31–32, 38, 41, 76–77, 81, 103, 119, 152, 174 piracy issue, 107–8 Cuba, 4, 160, 161 culture, and language, 138–40 deaf-blind, 134–35 debt, 8, 87, 152, 168 student, 152 decolonization, 5, 46 democracy, 47, 54, 62, 79–81, 84–85, 109, 112, 143–44, 150, 151, 158–59, 172 Democratic Party, 32, 41–42 demonstrations, 29–33, 35, 40–43, 73–77 Arab Spring, 44–55, 60–64, 67, 112–13, 168 civil rights, 24, 30–31, 45, 65–66, 72, 150, 167, 176 Occupy, 47, 65–69, 74–77, 118–21, 146, 168, 177 student, 73–74 Depression, 23, 27, 28 deregulation, 48, 173–74 Dewey, John, 147, 148, 149 Dink, Hrant, 89, 91 dissidents, 144–45 doctrinal system, 8, 10, 36, 38, 158, 159 Dönitz, Karl, 116 Draghi, Mario, 169 drugs, 160–62 Durand Line, 99 Duvalier, Jean-Claude, 17 Economic Policy Institute, 168 economy, 4, 32, 76–78, 97, 121, 168, 171 Arab Spring, 44–55, 60–64, 67 Chinese, 7–10 financial crisis, 23, 48, 86–89, 168–69 global shift of power, 5–13, 58, 76–77 Indian, 7, 10–11, 20–23 stimulus, 33 U.S. decline, 4–10, 56, 59–60 education, 37, 82, 147–56, 165–68 battle over, 147–56 higher, 150–53, 165–68 K-to-12, 153–56 privatization of, 38–39, 156, 167–68 public, 37–39, 147–48, 153–56, 166–68 science, 154–55 Egypt, 35, 51, 53, 61, 67 Arab Spring, 44–49, 54, 60–64, 67, 168 Einstein, Albert, 143 Eisenhower, Dwight, 125 electoral politics, 102–13, 117–19 electronic books, 104 Ellsberg, Daniel, 15, 113 El Salvador, 145 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 148, 156 Enlightenment, 116, 147, 148 environment, 12, 75, 121–25, 158–59, 163–65, 176 climate change, 75, 121–25, 159 fracking, 164–65 Erdoan, Recep Tayyip, 89, 90, 93 Europe, 5, 6, 9, 47, 51, 58, 161 economic crisis, 47, 86–89, 168–69 European Central Bank (ECB), 86–87, 169 European Union, 87, 89, 92 evolution, 128, 129, 137–38 Facebook, 145, 146 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 15, 71, 73 Federal Reserve, 86–87 financial crisis, 23, 48, 86–89, 168–69 Financial Times, 66, 76, 78, 123 Finland, 153, 154 Foreign Affairs, 59, 61 fossil fuels, 21, 22, 49–55, 122–24, 164, 165 fracking, 123, 164–65 France, 46, 50, 52, 68, 112–13, 170 Fraser, Doug, 25 Freedom of Information Act, 110 Gadhafi, Mu’ammar, 50, 53 Galileo, 143, 144 Gates, Bill, 11 Gaza, 93 General Motors, 33, 80 genetics, 126–27, 129, 140 Germany, 15, 27, 51, 58, 118, 153 economic policy, 88 Nazism, 28–29, 115–16 Weimar Republic, 25, 27–29 World War II, 115–16 GI bill, 152 Ginsberg, Benjamin, The Fall of the Faculty, 168 globalization, 5, 20–22, 170 financial crisis, 86–89, 168–69 labor, 9–12, 76–77, 169–70 shift of power, 5–13, 58, 76–77 Goldman Sachs, 42 Google, 107 government, 78–85, 150, 158 big, 81, 82 security, 107–13 “Grand Area” planning, 57 Great Britain, 5, 8–9, 16, 17, 21, 35, 50, 52, 61, 79, 107, 139, 172 colonialism, 9, 20 government, 79 slavery, 36 World War II, 115, 116 Greece, 87 Guantánamo, 72–73 Guatemala, 21 gun culture, 162–63 Gwadar, 22 Haiti, 11, 13–14, 17 Hale, Kenneth, 136, 139–41 Hanif, Mohammed, A Case of Exploding Mangoes, 106 Haq, Abdul, 16 Harvard University, Institute of Politics, 158 Havel, Václav, 145 health care, 24, 76, 82, 157 Obamacare, 124 Heilbrunn, Jacob, 111 Hindenburg, Paul von, 27–28 historical amnesia, 97–98 Hitler, Adolf, 28–29, 32, 88 Holder v.

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., 85 Human Development Index, 13 “Human Intelligence and the Environment” (Chomsky), 42 Humanitarian Law Project, 70–71 human rights, 109, 113 violations, 89–92, 95–96, 145 Humboldt, Wilhelm von, 149 Hume, David, 79, 81 Hussein, Saddam, 17, 71, 95 imperialism, 1–33 saltwater fallacy, 3–4 terminology, 3 India, 7, 9, 10–11, 17–23, 38, 50, 51, 107, 164 Bhopal explosion, 174 British rule, 20 -China relations, 20–22 economic growth, 7, 10–11, 20–23 -Israel relations, 20, 21 natural resources, 17–20 neoliberalism and, 19–22 TAPI pipeline and, 17–18 -U.S. relations, 20–22 war, 20 indignados, 47 Indonesia, 17 intellectual culture, 79, 81, 104–6, 141 intellectual property rights, 107–8 International Energy Association (IEA), 121–22 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 47 International Organization for a Participatory Society, 171 international relations (IR) theory, 8, 63 Internet, 105–13 security, 107–13 iPhone, 145–46 Iran, 18, 60, 62, 63, 90–91, 93, 95–98, 111, 112, 114 nuclear threat, 112 TAPI pipeline and, 18 Iran-Iraq War, 97 Iraq, 16–17, 21, 60, 61 Kurds, 95–96 nationalism, 55–56 U.S. war in, 16–17, 55–56, 62–63, 114–16 Islam, 60 political, 49, 61 radical, 61, 100 Israel, 20, 21, 96, 112 -India relations, 20, 21 -Lebanon relations, 63 Palestinian conflict, 46 -Turkey relations, 92–94 -U.S. relations, 21 Jacob, François, 129 James, William, 130 Japan, 5, 8, 58, 131, 139 Jefferson, Thomas, 3, 172 job creation, 76, 87 Kagan, Elena, 70 Karachi, 22 Keller, Bill, 144 Keller, Helen, 134, 135 Kennan, George, 57 Kennedy, John F., 2–3 Vietnam policy, 2–3, 97 Khadr, Omar, 72–73 King, Martin Luther, 30–31, 66, 105 Klein, Naomi, 123, 124 Kurds, 21, 89–92, 95–96 labor, 38, 81, 87, 169 anti-labor movements, 40 Arab Spring, 44–55, 60–64, 67 Chinese, 9–10, 11–12 collective bargaining, 40–41 demonstrations and strikes, 29, 33, 35, 40–43, 68, 120, 146 Depression-era, 23, 40, 67–68 global, 9–12, 76–77, 169–70 organized, 23–25, 39–41, 67–68, 147, 171 rustbelt, 11–12 solidarity, 39–41 unemployment, 22–23, 38, 66, 76 unions, 24–26, 33, 39–41, 68, 79, 147, 171 language, 126–42 biological acquisition of, 129–36 culture and, 138–40 sensory deprivation and, 134–35 similarity of, 140–41 study of, 137–38, 142 universal grammar, 126–59 Latin America, 4–7, 22, 61, 160–62, 164 drugs, 160–62 integration of, 6–7, 47, 161 U.S. military bases in, 6–7 Laxness, Halldór, 106 Lebanon, 63 Lee, Ching Kwan, 11 Left, 23, 25, 32–33, 59, 117, 147, 149, 150, 151 student, 73–74 Left Forum, 25, 27, 33 libertarianism, 157, 158, 163 Libya, 50–54, 91 no-fly zone, 50–52 Lippmann, Walter, 81 Madison, James, 84, 85 Magna Carta, 59, 72, 116 Mandela, Nelson, 71 Manning, Bradley, 113, 114 Marcos, Ferdinand, 17 market system, 80–81 Marx, Karl, 173, 175 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 13, 37, 105, 122, 134, 136, 149 mathematics, 137, 138 McCain, John, 103 McCarthyism, 24 McKiernan, Kevin, 95 media, 32, 66, 150, 151 mental slavery, 34–35, 101–25 Mexico, 11, 152–53, 162, 175 Middle East, 17, 44–64, 89–100, 111 Arab Spring, 44–55, 60–64, 67, 112–13, 168 oil, 21, 49–55 Turkish-Israeli relations, 92–94 uprisings, 44–64 military, 5, 98 Arab Spring, 44–55, 60–64 detention, 70–73 police, 119–20 U.S. bases in Latin America, 6–7 Mobutu Sese Seko, 17 Mondragon, 171 Montgomery, David, The Fall of the House of Labor, 23 Morgenthau, Hans, 63–64 The Purpose of American Politics, 64 Morocco, 46 Mubarak, Hosni, 45, 47, 62 Nader, Ralph, 150 NAFTA, 163, 175 Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 61 National Defense Authorization Act, 70 Native Americans, 22 natural gas, 17–18, 164–65 natural resources, 17–22, 164–65 Navy, U.S., 6–7, 14, 52, 116 Nazism, 28–29, 115–16 New Deal, 23, 82 New York, 67, 100, 166 New York Times, 60, 81, 89–91, 124, 144–45, 160 Ngo Dinh Diem, 2, 3 Ngo Dinh Nhu, 2, 3 Nicaragua, 7 9/11 attacks, 14, 15–16, 139 Nixon, Richard, 125, 150 No Child Left Behind, 153 Non-Proliferation Treaty, 18 North Africa, 46–48, 57, 60 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 50, 51, 91, 92 Norway, 115 nuclear weapons, 97, 98, 100, 110, 112, 176 Nuremberg Trials, 115–16 Nystrom, Paul, 36 Obama, Barack, 7, 33, 63, 90–91, 93, 110, 111, 114, 153, 162, 164 Afghanistan War and, 14–15 civil liberties and, 70–73 Libya and, 51–52 organized labor and, 41–42 2008 election, 102–3 Obamacare, 124 Occupy movements, 47, 65–69, 74–77, 118–21, 146, 168, 177 oil, 21, 22, 49–55, 124 Orwell, George, 19, 97 Pakistan, 16, 17, 22, 61, 98–100, 110 drone attacks on, 18–19, 98–99 nuclear industry, 98–100, 110 TAPI pipeline and, 18 Palestine, 46, 72 -Israel conflict, 46 Palmer raids, 68 Pamuk, Orhan, 91 Panama, 7 Panetta, Leon, 114 Pashtuns, 99 Patterson, Anne W., 99, 110 Paul, Rand, 157, 162, 163 Paul, Ron, 75, 124–25, 157, 163 pensions, 12, 22, 24, 26 Peres, Shimon, 93 Peshawar, 16 pharmaceutical companies, 107–8 Philippines, 4, 17 Pinochet, Augusto, 61 piracy, 107–8 political Islam, 49, 61 Political Science Quarterly, 82 police repression, 119–20 politics, 32, 41, 57, 59, 121, 142–45, 171 electoral, 102–3, 117–19 labor demonstrations and, 41–43 poverty, 6, 66, 82, 84 Powell, Colin, 115 Powell, Lewis, 150–51 Powell memorandum, 150–51 power systems, 34–35, 69 aristocrats and democrats, 160–78 chains of submission and subservience, 34–43 global shift, 5–13, 58, 76–77 language and education, 126–59 mental slavery, 101–25 new American imperialism, 1–33 uprisings, 44–64 privatization, 11, 38, 39, 40, 156–57, 167 Progressive Labor (PL), 73 propaganda system, 35–40, 66, 80, 82, 102, 119, 122–24 property rights, 84, 85 public, power of the, 78–81 public education, 37–39, 147–48, 153–56, 166–68 public relations, 35, 79–81, 102–3 Qasim, Abd al-Karim, 61 Race to the Top, 153 racism, 3, 31, 92 Ravitch, Diane, 154 Reagan, Ronald, 62, 71, 82, 95, 99 recession, 23, 48, 86–89 Red Scare, 23, 68, 120 Reich, Robert, 170, 172 Reilly, John, 122 Republican Party, 41, 57, 75, 76, 124, 125 Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), 72 Ribbentrop, Joachim von, 115 Right, 23, 32, 150–51 Riyadh, 52 Romney, Mitt, 57–58, 75 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 14, 23, 54 Roy, Arundhati, 22, 29, 31 Russia, 17–18, 20, 50, 61, 98, 102, 145 rustbelt, 11–12 Saharawi movement, 46 saltwater fallacy, 3–4 Saudi Arabia, 21, 49, 52, 61, 99, 111, 144 science, 142–43, 144 education, 154–55 modern, 143 sectarianism, 73–74 Seib, Gerald, 54 self-destruction, 42–43 Senate, U.S., 63, 85 sensory deprivation, 134–35 Shiites, 52–53 Singh, Manmohan, 19 Sino-Indian War, 20 slavery, 3, 34, 36, 51 end of, 34, 35, 36 mental, 34–35, 101–25 Slim, Carlos, 11 Smith, Adam, 8–9 social Darwinism, 157 social media, 105, 107, 145–47 Social Security, 39, 156–57 solidarity, 38–41, 146–47, 159 South Africa, 21, 50–51 apartheid, 71 South America, 6, 7, 57, 60, 161 Southeast Asia, 4, 60 South Korea, 9, 17 Spain, 4, 6, 33, 87 sports, college, 154–55 Stack, Joseph, 25–26, 29 Stalin, Joseph, 61 Stohl, Bev, 105 Stop Online Piracy Act, 107 strategic hamlets, 2 student activism, 73–74 submission and subservience, chains of, 34–43 Summit of the Americas (2012), 160–61 sunbelt, 11, 12 Sunnis, 52–53 Supreme Court, U.S., 70, 150 Buckley v.

Social Democratic America by Lane Kenworthy

affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alan Greenspan, barriers to entry, basic income, benefit corporation, business cycle, carbon tax, Celtic Tiger, centre right, clean water, collective bargaining, corporate governance, David Brooks, desegregation, Edward Glaeser, endogenous growth, full employment, Gini coefficient, hiring and firing, Home mortgage interest deduction, illegal immigration, income inequality, invisible hand, Kenneth Arrow, labor-force participation, manufacturing employment, market bubble, minimum wage unemployment, new economy, off-the-grid, postindustrial economy, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, rent-seeking, rising living standards, Robert Gordon, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, school choice, shareholder value, sharing economy, Skype, Steve Jobs, too big to fail, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, union organizing, universal basic income, War on Poverty, working poor, zero day

Legislation (a statutory minimum wage) or collective bargaining can impose a wage floor with no employment-reducing impact, and so it is a good idea to do so. The trick is to figure out the tipping point—the level above which employment is impeded—and set the wage floor at or near that point. The optimal wage floor will differ across regions. In the United States the federal government sets a minimum wage, but many states and some cities establish a higher minimum. That’s a sensible arrangement. The optimal floor also will differ across industries. This is something collective bargaining is ideally suited to address, but America’s unions are so weak that at some point government may have to play a more active role. 2.

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In the United States, by contrast, a comparable job would have yielded earnings of about $11,000. In fact, according to calculations by Peter Edelman, half of the jobs in the United States pay less than $34,000 a year, and nearly a quarter pay less than $22,000.128 There is no prospect of low-end service employees in the United States achieving Danish-level wages via collective bargaining. American unions are too weak. But suppose we raised the statutory minimum wage from its current level of $7.25 per hour to $15. Would that be a good thing to do? Maybe not. We should care more about posttransfer-posttax household income than about individual wages, and there are ways to get to a decent income floor that don’t require a high wage floor.129 The Denmark–United States comparison illustrates this.

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In reality, this is extremely unlikely to happen. Figure 4.25 shows the evolution of America’s minimum wage and EITC, expressed in annual (rather than hourly) values. The minimum wage increased steadily until the 1970s, but it then fell and has been flat since. As of 2013 the federal minimum is $7.25 per hour, less than half the Danish (collectively bargained) minimum. We certainly can afford a higher minimum wage, yet recent history offers no reason to believe it will get close to the Danish level. More likely is a moderate increase in the minimum wage coupled with an increase in the EITC. In 1993 the EITC was indexed to the inflation rate, so it, unlike the minimum wage, always keeps up with price increases.

Humans as a Service: The Promise and Perils of Work in the Gig Economy by Jeremias Prassl

3D printing, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, algorithmic management, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Andrei Shleifer, asset light, autonomous vehicles, barriers to entry, call centre, cashless society, Clayton Christensen, collaborative consumption, collaborative economy, collective bargaining, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, death from overwork, Didi Chuxing, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, driverless car, Erik Brynjolfsson, full employment, future of work, George Akerlof, gig economy, global supply chain, Greyball, hiring and firing, income inequality, independent contractor, information asymmetry, invisible hand, Jeff Bezos, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Kevin Roose, Kickstarter, low skilled workers, Lyft, machine readable, Mahatma Gandhi, Mark Zuckerberg, market friction, means of production, moral hazard, Network effects, new economy, obamacare, pattern recognition, platform as a service, Productivity paradox, race to the bottom, regulatory arbitrage, remote working, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Gordon, Ronald Coase, Rosa Parks, scientific management, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, self-driving car, shareholder value, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, Silicon Valley ideology, Simon Singh, software as a service, Steve Jobs, TaskRabbit, TechCrunch disrupt, The Future of Employment, The Market for Lemons, The Nature of the Firm, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, transaction costs, transportation-network company, Travis Kalanick, two tier labour market, two-sided market, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, union organizing, warehouse automation, work culture , working-age population

Building on the notion that on-demand economy platforms represent a genuinely novel form of work, deserving of its own legal status and regulatory apparatus, Seth Harris, a former Deputy US Secretary of Labor, and Alan Krueger, a Princeton economist who has repeatedly collaborated with on-demand platforms, have argued in favour of the statutory introduction of a third, intermediate category to capture gig-economy workers. Their ‘independent worker’ would be entitled to some protection, including collective bargaining rights and elements of social security provision, whilst being denied recourse to basic standards such as wage and hours protection.67 Would the introduction of such a status be helpful? Not necessarily. Platforms would immediately be relieved of some of employers’ most costly obligations—whilst continuing to litigate over independent worker status.

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The promise of freedom, finally, rings equally hollow, with platforms’ busi- ness models making it difficult for workers to assert their fundamental rights, including the freedom to form a union and bargain collectively. Most operators are unsurprisingly hostile to any efforts at organizing genuinely independent worker representation. When unionization was on the cards in Seattle, Uber’s call-centre representatives were instructed to ring up drivers and ‘share some thoughts’ about how ‘collective bargaining and unioniza- tion do not fit the characteristics of how most partners use the Uber platform’.69 * * * 66 Lost in the Crowd As former New York Times correspondent Steven Greenhouse notes: In many ways, digital on-demand workers face far more obstacles to organiz- ing and being heard than workers in the traditional economy.

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Or maybe she just wants to take a job until she pays for a davenport or a new fur coat.’49 None of this is to suggest, of course, that in centuries past—as today—there wasn’t the same heterogeneity of motivations behind casual work, including instances of work to earn genuine supplementary income and while away the idle hours, or even those who genuinely preferred to stay away from work directly supervised by a boss, or from the often coarse environments of the factory and workshop floor.50 The overall impact of the ‘hybrid’ market–hierarchy model on labour markets is nonetheless clear: a large, low-skilled taskforce fundamentally undermines workers’ individual and collective bargaining power. The isola- tion and irregularity of the work made it hard to organize collectively,51 leaving some employers to brag in 1876 that the system allowed them to enjoy: a kind of auction reversed. On a Monday morning the contractors or master- men assemble at the master’s warehouse . . . he calls them in one by one, and test them as to what prices they will make certain chains for, invariably giving the work to those who offer the lowest tender.52 History Repeats Itself Even a brief historical survey can thus debunk the on-demand economy’s claim to innovation, at least as far as work is concerned.

The Making of Global Capitalism by Leo Panitch, Sam Gindin

accounting loophole / creative accounting, active measures, airline deregulation, Alan Greenspan, anti-communist, Asian financial crisis, asset-backed security, bank run, banking crisis, barriers to entry, Basel III, Bear Stearns, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, bilateral investment treaty, book value, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, BRICs, British Empire, business cycle, call centre, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon credits, Carmen Reinhart, central bank independence, classic study, collective bargaining, continuous integration, corporate governance, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, crony capitalism, currency manipulation / currency intervention, currency peg, dark matter, democratizing finance, Deng Xiaoping, disintermediation, ending welfare as we know it, eurozone crisis, facts on the ground, financial deregulation, financial innovation, Financial Instability Hypothesis, financial intermediation, floating exchange rates, foreign exchange controls, full employment, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, global value chain, guest worker program, Hyman Minsky, imperial preference, income inequality, inflation targeting, interchangeable parts, interest rate swap, Kenneth Rogoff, Kickstarter, land reform, late capitalism, liberal capitalism, liquidity trap, London Interbank Offered Rate, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, manufacturing employment, market bubble, market fundamentalism, Martin Wolf, means of production, military-industrial complex, money market fund, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, Monroe Doctrine, moral hazard, mortgage debt, mortgage tax deduction, Myron Scholes, new economy, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, non-tariff barriers, Northern Rock, oil shock, precariat, price stability, proprietary trading, quantitative easing, Ralph Nader, RAND corporation, regulatory arbitrage, reserve currency, risk tolerance, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, scientific management, seigniorage, shareholder value, short selling, Silicon Valley, sovereign wealth fund, special drawing rights, special economic zone, stock buybacks, structural adjustment programs, subprime mortgage crisis, Tax Reform Act of 1986, The Chicago School, The Great Moderation, the payments system, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, too big to fail, trade liberalization, transcontinental railway, trickle-down economics, union organizing, vertical integration, very high income, Washington Consensus, We are all Keynesians now, Works Progress Administration, zero-coupon bond, zero-sum game

When General Motors, the largest manufacturing company in the world, and the UAW, the most prominent union in the country, institutionalized the “Fordist” link between mass production and mass consumption through this path-breaking collective agreement, they went far beyond anything that Henry Ford ever imagined. By tying company-level wage increases to estimates of national productivity increases, and building in inflation protection through a cost-of-living index, they implicitly accepted that collective bargaining would not disturb the existing distribution of income. The Treaty also centralized power within the union. As the focus of collective bargaining shifted to the negotiation of company-wide wage and benefit increases, and as the union accepted management’s control over production at the shop-floor level, local rank-and-file power was undermined. Since the New Deal labor law allowed for the right to strike during the term of a collective agreement, the Treaty’s requirement that authority for this in any plant had to be secured from the national union leadership further institutionalized a corporatist relationship between top company and union leaders, and the loss of local autonomy.

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This approach proved quite successful in the case of agriculture.49 But the limited capacity of the state in relation to industry was immediately revealed when the National Industry Recovery Act (NIRA) reverted to the corporatist model introduced in World War I. A National Recovery Administration (NRA) was established to oversee industrial self-regulation through a system of codes drawn up by the trade association in each sector. In a concession to labor, each code was required to establish minimum labor standards and collective bargaining rights, but its implementation was left to the discretion of the trade association itself.50 This failed as a solution to the crisis, not least because by “controlling most of the information about industrial operations on which the NRA codes and their enforcement would have to be based,” private firms constructed loopholes so as to escape the labor standards and cut back production while keeping prices high; while the “NRA apparatus, itself thoroughly permeated by conflicting business interests, was unable to resolve disputes in an authoritative fashion.”51 The experience with the NIRA “foreshadowed the trend for the executive branch of the state apparatus to organize and reorganize departments and decision-making centers that would eventually circumvent conflicting interests.”52 But for the time being, especially without increased wages or public expenditures on the scale needed to generate effective demand and restore profits (which fell by three-quarters in 1934), the promised economic recovery did not materialize.

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Although long advanced by liberal reformers, the 1935 National Labor Relations Act was only passed in response to what Senator Wagner himself, in introducing the Bill associated with his name, called “the rising tide of industrial discontent.” The Wagner Act legalized unionization campaigns, collective bargaining and the right to strike, and established quasi-juridical procedures for securing recognition and settling disputes. The Social Security Act of the same year founded the American welfare state with its national provisions for unemployment and retirement benefits. To be sure, given the state’s responsibilities for mediating class conflict and its dependence on capital accumulation, the Wagner Act also constrained labor militancy in various ways (not least by setting strict conditions for when the right to strike could be legally exercised), while the Social Security Act (in any case funded by regressive taxation) reinforced the discipline of the labor market with its limited benefits and the many conditions it established for eligibility.

How Capitalism Saved America: The Untold History of Our Country, From the Pilgrims to the Present by Thomas J. Dilorenzo

air traffic controllers' union, Alan Greenspan, banking crisis, British Empire, business cycle, California energy crisis, collective bargaining, Cornelius Vanderbilt, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, electricity market, financial deregulation, Fractional reserve banking, Hernando de Soto, Ida Tarbell, income inequality, invisible hand, Joseph Schumpeter, laissez-faire capitalism, McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit, means of production, medical malpractice, Menlo Park, minimum wage unemployment, Money creation, Norman Mailer, plutocrats, price stability, profit maximization, profit motive, Ralph Nader, rent control, rent-seeking, Robert Bork, rolling blackouts, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, Silicon Valley, statistical model, Tax Reform Act of 1986, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, transcontinental railway, union organizing, Upton Sinclair, vertical integration, W. E. B. Du Bois, wealth creators, working poor, Works Progress Administration, zero-sum game

New York: Basic Books, 1988. Huber describes the causes and consequences of America’s crazy liability law system, in which people with deep pockets are often sued regardless of whether they are liable for harming anyone. Hutt, William H. The Theory of Collective Bargaining. Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 1974. Hutt challenges the notion that workers are better off with collective bargaining instead of individual bargaining over wages and working conditions. He also exposes numerous myths about labor unions, such as the myth that unions are necessary to raise the living standards of workers. Kirzner, Israel. Competition and Entrepreneurship.

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Hoover may have been a world-class mining engineer, but he had a dangerously poor grasp of economics, which fed his desire to remake American society. Joan Hoff Wilson describes Hoover’s basic economic beliefs as follows: There was too much lawlessness, destructive competition, and economic waste, too much unemployment and repetitiveness in factory work; the twelve-hour day was too long; labor lacked the guarantee of collective bargaining; child labor still existed despite prewar progressive legislation; education was inadequate in most states; some people were making too much money—“far beyond the needs of stimulation to initiative.”11 Each of these statements reflected Hoover’s fundamental misunderstanding of economics. While Hoover complained of the “lawlessness” bred by capitalism, it seems to have been lost on him that most of the lawlessness of the 1920s was a direct effect of federal regulation—Prohibition.

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Laws against extortion exempted unions as long as the extortion involved “the payment of wages by a bona fide employer to a bona fide employee.”42 We feel the effects of many of these laws even today. Thanks primarily to FDR’s Depression-era labor legislation, labor unions can compel workers to pay dues as a condition of keeping their jobs, with the dues often being used for political purposes unrelated to collective bargaining; are immune from most federal court injunctions; are legally empowered to “represent” all workers in a bargaining unit, regardless of whether they are union members; can compel employers to make their private property available to union officials; are all but immune from paying damages for personal and property injury that they inflict; and can force employers to open up their books to them.43 As Friedrich Hayek wrote in The Constitution of Liberty (1960), “We have now reached a state where they [unions] have become uniquely privileged institutions to which the general rules of law do not apply.

The Cost of Inequality: Why Economic Equality Is Essential for Recovery by Stewart Lansley

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Adam Curtis, air traffic controllers' union, Alan Greenspan, AOL-Time Warner, banking crisis, Basel III, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Bonfire of the Vanities, borderless world, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business cycle, business process, call centre, capital controls, collective bargaining, corporate governance, corporate raider, correlation does not imply causation, creative destruction, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, crony capitalism, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, Edward Glaeser, Everybody Ought to Be Rich, falling living standards, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial innovation, Financial Instability Hypothesis, floating exchange rates, full employment, Goldman Sachs: Vampire Squid, high net worth, hiring and firing, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, James Dyson, Jeff Bezos, job automation, job polarisation, John Meriwether, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, knowledge economy, laissez-faire capitalism, Larry Ellison, light touch regulation, Londongrad, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, market bubble, Martin Wolf, Mary Meeker, mittelstand, mobile money, Mont Pelerin Society, Myron Scholes, new economy, Nick Leeson, North Sea oil, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, oil shock, plutocrats, Plutonomy: Buying Luxury, Explaining Global Imbalances, proprietary trading, Right to Buy, rising living standards, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, savings glut, shareholder value, The Great Moderation, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, too big to fail, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, Washington Consensus, Winter of Discontent, working-age population

Independent studies have shown that greater controls would have only a minimal impact on the economy, but would greatly reduce the probability of crises.418 Secondly, the UK and the US currently have the most de-regulated labour markets amongst the world’s developed nations, offering only minimal levels of workplace protection.419 The evidence is clear, that countries with a high coverage of collective bargaining tend to have lower earnings dispersion. There is nothing unusual about labour being given a stronger voice in the workplace. Compared with the rest of Europe, the UK has one of the lowest proportions of workers covered by collective bargaining arrangements.420 In Germany and several other continental countries the unions are more integrated into workplace decision making in a way which brings a much more co-operative approach to the running of business and the economy.

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‘There can be no robust recovery as long as corporations are intent on keeping idle workers sidelined and squeezing the pay of those on the job’ added the New York Times.415 Since the downturn there have been concerted efforts across the United States, mostly by big business, to further weaken the bargaining power of labour. In Wisconsin, the state’s Republican governor, Scott Walker, even tried in February 2011 to introduce a bill designed to remove collective bargaining and other union rights. In an echo of Ronald Reagan’s war on air traffic controllers in the 1980s, this was an attempt to dismantle what was left of union power, one which led to sustained protests across the country. A similar divide has been emerging in the UK. After falling in every year from 2005-2010, real take-home pay is now predicted to continue to fall for the next year or two at least.

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As part of the new contract with labour, Britain should move more closely to the continental European practice, especially the ‘flexicurity’ model followed mainly in Scandinavia. These nations have both highly interventionist policies—which combine worker security with a flexible response to technological advance—and a strong record on employment generation, labour force participation and growth. They are characterised by strong collective bargaining and workforce protection along with generous welfare benefits buttressed by stringent job search requirements and time limits on the duration of benefits. In contrast to the Anglo-Saxon experience of high earnings inequality and high levels of in-work poverty, the flexicurity countries have combined high employment with much lower levels of wage inequality.

Straight Talk on Trade: Ideas for a Sane World Economy by Dani Rodrik

3D printing, airline deregulation, Asian financial crisis, bank run, barriers to entry, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, blue-collar work, Bretton Woods, BRICs, business cycle, call centre, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon tax, Carmen Reinhart, carried interest, central bank independence, centre right, collective bargaining, conceptual framework, continuous integration, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, currency manipulation / currency intervention, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, Donald Trump, endogenous growth, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, eurozone crisis, export processing zone, failed state, financial deregulation, financial innovation, financial intermediation, financial repression, floating exchange rates, full employment, future of work, general purpose technology, George Akerlof, global value chain, income inequality, inflation targeting, information asymmetry, investor state dispute settlement, invisible hand, Jean Tirole, Kenneth Rogoff, low interest rates, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, market clearing, market fundamentalism, meta-analysis, moral hazard, Nelson Mandela, new economy, offshore financial centre, open borders, open economy, open immigration, Pareto efficiency, postindustrial economy, precautionary principle, price stability, public intellectual, pushing on a string, race to the bottom, randomized controlled trial, regulatory arbitrage, rent control, rent-seeking, Richard Thaler, Robert Gordon, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, Sam Peltzman, Silicon Valley, Solyndra, special economic zone, spectrum auction, Steven Pinker, tacit knowledge, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, too big to fail, total factor productivity, trade liberalization, transaction costs, Tyler Cowen, unorthodox policies, Washington Consensus, World Values Survey, zero-sum game, éminence grise

But there would be a compensatory boost to the economy, they argued, that would come from the long-delayed and much-needed opening of the Greek economy to competitive market forces. The specifics demanded from Greece ranged from mundane to gut-wrenching. They included (in no particular order) lower barriers to entry in service businesses such as notaries, pharmacies, and taxis; reduced scope of collective bargaining; privatization of state assets; a rollback of pensions; and the cleanup of Greece’s notoriously inefficient and arguably corrupt tax administration. The IMF’s then-chief economist, Olivier Blanchard, (among others) argued that such reforms were critical in light of the “dismal productivity growth record of Greece before the program.”2 Less ambitious reforms wouldn’t do because they would have less impact on growth potential and necessitate greater debt relief.

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India’s growth performance lagged until the 1980s, but has been more than decent since (even overtaking China in recent years). Similarly, there is no reason why workers in low income countries should be deprived of fundamental labor rights for the sake of industrial development and export performance. These include freedom of association and collective bargaining, reasonably safe working conditions, nondiscrimination, maximum hours, and restrictions on arbitrary dismissal. As with democracy, these are basic requirements of a decent society. Their first-order effect is to level the bargaining relationship between employers and employees, rather than to raise overall costs of production.

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In 1981, the “trade adjustment assistance (TAA) program was one of the first things Reagan attacked, cutting its weekly compensation payments.”5 The damage continued under subsequent, Democratic administrations. In the words of Mishel, “if free-traders had actually cared about the working class they could have supported a full range of policies to support robust wage growth: full employment, collective bargaining, high labor standards, a robust minimum wage, and so on.” And all of this could have been done “before administering ‘shocks’ by expanding trade with low-wage countries.” Could the United States now reverse course and follow the newly emergent conventional wisdom? As late as 2007, political scientist Ken Scheve and economist Matt Slaughter called for “a New Deal for globalization” in the United States, which would link “engagement with the world economy to a substantial redistribution of income.”6 In the United States, they argued, this would mean adopting a much more progressive federal tax system.

Working the Phones: Control and Resistance in Call Centres by Jamie Woodcock

always be closing, anti-work, antiwork, call centre, capitalist realism, cognitive dissonance, collective bargaining, David Graeber, emotional labour, gamification, invention of the telephone, job satisfaction, late capitalism, means of production, millennium bug, new economy, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, post-Fordism, post-industrial society, post-work, precariat, profit motive, scientific management, social intelligence, stakhanovite, technological determinism, women in the workforce

There was no formal worker organisation – trade union or otherwise – in the call centre (but as we have seen this does not mean it was not a site of collective struggle). There are two key issues here. The first is the state of trade unionism in the UK. Trade unions have a basic aim under capitalism: to secure, usually by collective bargaining, better conditions for workers. But in practice contemporary trade unionism seems to have lost it’s ‘unionateness’: the ‘commitment of an organization to the general principles and ideology of trade unionism’,1 failing to even secure these better conditions in many cases. As we will discuss in this chapter, it is therefore difficult to connect workplace resistance to official trade unionism.

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This remains primarily a demand on women in the workforce and increases the likelihood of employment in non-standard jobs that are temporary or casualised. It is therefore possible to say that the most precarious and vulnerable are those in low-paid, ‘non-standard’ jobs, without trade union organisation as they are not covered by either of the ‘three regulatory regimes – collective bargaining, employment protection rights and the national insurance system’.38 Much academic literature is concerned with ‘the unionized workforce’, yet ‘the non-unionized themselves, who comprise the majority of employees, have been marginalized’, something that Pollert and Charlwood argue demands renewed attention.39 138 Precarious Organisation the limitations of trade unions The problems of casualisation are compounded by the falling levels of trade union membership in the UK.

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They continue to argue that due to this, ‘three significant dimensions of policy can be identified: a strategy of de-regulation of labour markets and promotion of a low wage, low skill economy as a means of attracting inward investment; competitive tendering and internal markets in the public sector; and the sustained legislative assault on union organisation, employment rights and collective bargaining’.41 The level of strike action can be used as an indicator of the confidence and combativity of the working class. The institutional figures for trade union membership are worrying and the figures for official strike days paint a similar picture. In the 1980s there was an average of 400 strike days lost per 1,000 workers annually.42 Between 2003 and 2007 the average number of strike days per 1,000 workers had fallen to only 25.1.43 The past few years have seen the trade union movement responding to government austerity programmes, which involved three dimensions: the Trade Union Congress organised a significant demonstration on 26 March 2011 in London which was followed by two large strikes in June and November later that year.

The People: The Rise and Fall of the Working Class, 1910-2010 by Selina Todd

"there is no alternative" (TINA), call centre, collective bargaining, conceptual framework, credit crunch, deindustrialization, deskilling, different worldview, Downton Abbey, financial independence, full employment, income inequality, longitudinal study, manufacturing employment, meritocracy, Neil Kinnock, New Urbanism, Red Clydeside, rent control, Right to Buy, rising living standards, scientific management, sexual politics, strikebreaker, The Spirit Level, unemployed young men, union organizing, upwardly mobile, urban renewal, Winter of Discontent, women in the workforce, work culture , young professional

Yet as Alice Foley later wrote, the militancy of these years was ‘a first shot in the human struggle to retain traditional methods of production against those fierce on-coming thrusts of technocracy and automation which were to harass and bedevil the cotton industry for the next half-century.’15 The actions of people like her did help to establish a modicum of negotiation with their employers and ensured that industrial workers were not forced into the deferential role demanded of domestic servants, who lacked any collective bargaining rights. On the eve of the First World War, however, employers refused to grant their workers many rights at all. Unemployment was high, and their government favoured the harsh repression of industrial militancy; the mill owners and manufacturers of Britain could defy the strikers with the support of ministers of state.

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During the war the government struck a contract with the people: work hard in return for a guaranteed job, a living wage and care in times of need. This bargain evolved because the demand for munitions and men created full employment in Britain for the first time, and the workers themselves used this to strengthen their collective bargaining power. But to call the Second World War ‘the people’s war’ does not mean that Britain became classless. The government sought to win the war by demanding ever greater sacrifice and effort from the workers in the factories and from ordinary troops. Only when the crisis absolutely demanded it did they oblige middle- and upper-class people to share in some of these sacrifices.

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He began in May 1940 by cutting working hours in Royal Ordnance Factories, increasing the number of workplace canteens, building workers’ hostels and improving the medical services available to factory workers. Bevin professed himself determined to ensure that ‘no industry … lack trade agreement’ by the end of the war; by which he meant that every industry must institute collective bargaining between employers and trade unions, thereby granting the latter a new and permanent form of power.11 Workers needed to feel they had a vested interest in what they were doing, otherwise they wouldn’t be motivated to work at the rate the war effort required of them. Bevin won his case because, as the historian Keith Middlemas points out, ‘labour rather than machinery or capital had become the scarcest and most prized industrial commodity.’12 In other words, the war effort depended on workers – lots of them, working as hard as they possibly could.

The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era by Gary Gerstle

2021 United States Capitol attack, A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, air traffic controllers' union, Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, Alvin Toffler, anti-communist, AOL-Time Warner, Bear Stearns, behavioural economics, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, Black Lives Matter, blue-collar work, borderless world, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, British Empire, Broken windows theory, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Cass Sunstein, collective bargaining, Cornelius Vanderbilt, coronavirus, COVID-19, creative destruction, crony capitalism, cuban missile crisis, David Brooks, David Graeber, death from overwork, defund the police, deindustrialization, democratizing finance, Deng Xiaoping, desegregation, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Donald Trump, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, European colonialism, Ferguson, Missouri, financial deregulation, financial engineering, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Frederick Winslow Taylor, full employment, future of work, Future Shock, George Floyd, George Gilder, gig economy, Glass-Steagall Act, global supply chain, green new deal, Greenspan put, guns versus butter model, Haight Ashbury, Henry Ford's grandson gave labor union leader Walter Reuther a tour of the company’s new, automated factory…, Ida Tarbell, immigration reform, informal economy, invention of the printing press, invisible hand, It's morning again in America, Jeff Bezos, John Perry Barlow, Kevin Kelly, Kitchen Debate, low interest rates, Lyft, manufacturing employment, market fundamentalism, Martin Wolf, mass incarceration, Menlo Park, microaggression, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, millennium bug, Modern Monetary Theory, money market fund, Mont Pelerin Society, mortgage debt, mutually assured destruction, Naomi Klein, neoliberal agenda, new economy, New Journalism, Northern Rock, obamacare, Occupy movement, oil shock, open borders, Peter Thiel, Philip Mirowski, Powell Memorandum, precariat, price stability, public intellectual, Ralph Nader, Robert Bork, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, Seymour Hersh, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, Silicon Valley startup, social distancing, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, Stewart Brand, Strategic Defense Initiative, super pumped, technoutopianism, Telecommunications Act of 1996, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Chicago School, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, too big to fail, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, union organizing, urban decay, urban renewal, War on Poverty, Washington Consensus, We are all Keynesians now, We are the 99%, white flight, Whole Earth Catalog, WikiLeaks, women in the workforce, Works Progress Administration, Y2K, Yom Kippur War

This retreat was evident in a variety of ways: in the articulation of a set of managerial rights held by corporations that unions were not permitted to encroach upon; the abandonment, after World War II, of democratic forms of industrial planning through tripartite boards of corporate executives, union leaders, and representatives of the public; the passage of Taft-Hartley, a measure expressly intended to limit the power of unions by stripping communist-led unions of collective bargaining rights and allowing states to pass “right-to-work” laws that allowed individual workers to refuse to join unions, even where the latter had won elections to represent all the workers in a plant.21 The 1940s did witness the rollback of certain worker rights and New Deal ambitions. But our analysis did not take seriously the possibility that things might have gone much worse for the New Deal coalition.

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The limits on competition meant that individual employers could tolerate higher wage and benefit costs. The clearest manifestation of that compromise was the landmark 1950 Treaty of Detroit in which automobile employers agreed to share a significant portion of their resources with autoworkers in return for labor peace. This collective bargaining agreement, much emulated across sectors of the American economy where organized labor was strong, had been made possible in the first instance by a federal government willing to support the right of workers to organize and willing to punish employers who violated that right. It had been made possible in the second instance by the extraordinary preeminence of American industry in the world.

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The time had come for a strong central state to intervene in economic processes, to create a level playing field in which workers and employers could engage each other on more or less equal terms, and to provide a cushion for those who, through injury, unemployment, and poverty, had been cast aside. The Progressive era (1900–1920) was defined by efforts to curb corporate power, to grant labor unions rights to collective bargaining, to inaugurate schemes of social insurance, and to establish a welfare state. Herbert Croly had laid out a comprehensive program of this sort in The Promise of American Life, and Theodore Roosevelt had distilled it into this pithy and powerful sentence that stood at the heart of the epoch-defining oration he had given at Osawatomie, Kansas, in 1910, the place where, in the 1850s, the fiery abolitionist John Brown and his supporters had held off a large group of pro-slavery settlers in a fierce gun battle: “The man who wrongly holds that every human right is secondary to his profit,” Roosevelt declared, “must now give way to the advocate of human welfare, who rightly maintains that every man holds his property subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it.”17 In 1917, Wilson became the first president to attach the word “liberal” to the view expressed by Theodore Roosevelt in 1910.

Battling Eight Giants: Basic Income Now by Guy Standing

basic income, Bernie Sanders, carbon tax, centre right, collective bargaining, decarbonisation, degrowth, diversified portfolio, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Extinction Rebellion, full employment, future of work, Gini coefficient, income inequality, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), job automation, labour market flexibility, Lao Tzu, longitudinal study, low skilled workers, Martin Wolf, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, North Sea oil, offshore financial centre, open economy, pension reform, precariat, quantitative easing, rent control, Ronald Reagan, selection bias, universal basic income, Y Combinator

As it is, the welfare state has been made more fragile and ‘residual’ in character as successive governments have accelerated the trends to comprehensive means-testing, behavioural conditionality and workfare. None of the funding methods envisaged for basic income would mean less money for public services. (7) Basic income would weaken unions and collective bargaining. Some trade unionists have argued that, if workers had a basic income, they would not join unions and would be less inclined to push for higher wages. The opposite is the case. It would encourage workers to back collective bargaining for higher wages, because having basic income security would make them less fearful of retribution. A basic income would be a boon to unionism. (8) A basic income would subsidize low wages.

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Yet today in Britain, of the more than 14 million people classified as living in poverty, 8 million or 58% have someone in Slaying Giants with Basic Income 11 the household in employment, up from 37% in 1995.10 Some 2.8 million people are living in poverty despite having all adults in their household employed full-time.11 Nearly three quarters of children in poverty have one or both parents in jobs, compared with about half in the 1990s. The fact is that a growing number of jobs do not enable people to escape from income poverty. Reforms in labour standards, minimum wages and collective bargaining could moderate this, but the pattern is likely to persist. Britain is not alone in this trend, but it has been among the worst.12 It is highly unlikely that, despite all these trends, there has been no increase in overall inequality. And it is worth highlighting some simple flaws in the statistics on which claims that there has been no such increase are based.

Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society by Eric Posner, E. Weyl

3D printing, activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, Amazon Mechanical Turk, anti-communist, augmented reality, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, Branko Milanovic, business process, buy and hold, carbon footprint, Cass Sunstein, Clayton Christensen, cloud computing, collective bargaining, commoditize, congestion pricing, Corn Laws, corporate governance, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, data science, deep learning, DeepMind, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, endowment effect, Erik Brynjolfsson, Ethereum, feminist movement, financial deregulation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, gamification, Garrett Hardin, George Akerlof, global macro, global supply chain, guest worker program, hydraulic fracturing, Hyperloop, illegal immigration, immigration reform, income inequality, income per capita, index fund, informal economy, information asymmetry, invisible hand, Jane Jacobs, Jaron Lanier, Jean Tirole, Jeremy Corbyn, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, labor-force participation, laissez-faire capitalism, Landlord’s Game, liberal capitalism, low skilled workers, Lyft, market bubble, market design, market friction, market fundamentalism, mass immigration, negative equity, Network effects, obamacare, offshore financial centre, open borders, Pareto efficiency, passive investing, patent troll, Paul Samuelson, performance metric, plutocrats, pre–internet, radical decentralization, random walk, randomized controlled trial, Ray Kurzweil, recommendation engine, rent-seeking, Richard Thaler, ride hailing / ride sharing, risk tolerance, road to serfdom, Robert Shiller, Ronald Coase, Rory Sutherland, search costs, Second Machine Age, second-price auction, self-driving car, shareholder value, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Skype, special economic zone, spectrum auction, speech recognition, statistical model, stem cell, telepresence, Thales and the olive presses, Thales of Miletus, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Future of Employment, The Market for Lemons, The Nature of the Firm, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, trade route, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, trickle-down economics, Tyler Cowen, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, universal basic income, urban planning, Vanguard fund, vertical integration, women in the workforce, Zipcar

Marx argued that these labor practices created what his collaborator Friedrich Engels called a “reserve army of the labor” (that is, a class of unemployed) whose even more squalid condition would persuade workers to do anything to maintain their jobs.41 As economist John Roemer showed, Marx’s conclusions are extremely unlikely to prevail if employers compete for workers.42 However, they are exactly what one would anticipate in a world where capitalists conspired with each other, or had sufficient unilateral power, to hold down wages. Beatrice and Sydney Webb, a dynamic pair of late nineteenth-century British Radicals, advocated collective bargaining by workers, arguing that it would make production more efficient by raising wages above the levels that drove workers out of the labor force.43 John Kenneth Galbraith, the mid-twentieth-century American economist we met in chapter 2, hailed unions as a necessary form of “countervailing power” required to balance the power of monopsonists.44 This view has been partly vindicated by the research of subsequent economists.

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Allen shows that prior to the emergence of unions, British wages during the early process of industrialization hardly advanced at all despite improvements in technology.45 Once unions managed to counter the monopsony power of British industrialists, not only did wages quickly increase, but the pace of overall productivity radically accelerated. Economists David Autor, Daron Acemoglu, and Suresh Naidu believe that the breaking of monopsony power through labor unions, government labor regulation, minimum wages, and other reforms was critical to the further acceleration of productivity.46 Beyond their role in collective bargaining, unions served other functions that helped support the “Fordist” mode of assembly line–based production that prevailed in the twentieth century: they screened and guaranteed the quality of the work produced by their workers and helped them learn the skills required by a rapidly changing work environment.

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An individual data worker lacks bargaining power, so she cannot credibly threaten to withdraw her data from Facebook or Google unless she receives a fair reward. Furthermore, to realize the gains from data as labor, data workers will need some organization to vet them, ensure they provide quality data, and help them navigate the complexities of digital systems without overburdening their time. These triple roles, of collective bargaining, quality certification, and career development, are exactly the roles unions played during the Industrial Age. It may be time for “data workers of the world (to) unite” into a “data labor movement.”47 A striking feature of the data labor market is that it is an international market, one that is almost completely unaffected by borders and government regulation.

The Knowledge Economy by Roberto Mangabeira Unger

additive manufacturing, adjacent possible, balance sheet recession, business cycle, collective bargaining, commoditize, deindustrialization, disruptive innovation, first-past-the-post, full employment, global value chain, information asymmetry, knowledge economy, market fundamentalism, means of production, Paul Samuelson, Phillips curve, post-Fordism, radical decentralization, savings glut, secular stagnation, side project, tacit knowledge, total factor productivity, transaction costs, union organizing, wealth creators

The approaches to organizing and representing labor that prevailed in the course of the twentieth century enjoyed such a foundation. The predominant arrangement for organizing and representing labor in the rich North Atlantic world and its outposts was the contractualist or collective bargaining labor-law regime: collective bargaining was designed to shore up the reality of contract in the unequal setting of the employment relation thanks to the “countervailing power” with which it endowed organized labor. In Latin America, an alternative, corporatist labor law emerged: workers (in the formal, legal economy that often accounted for half or less of the labor force) were automatically unionized according to their sector, under the tutelage of the ministry of labor.

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The repetitious character of work, mimicking the operations of rigid machines, leaves the specialized implementers of productive tasks little occasion to redefine the plan that they are charged with executing. An implicit term of the employment contract—the contractual form of wage labor—is that all residual discretion to direct the process of production is reserved to managers appointed by owners, within the restraints of law and collective bargaining. In the established arrangements of the market economy, the central legal devices organizing decentralized access to productive resources and opportunities are the unified property right (a legal invention of the nineteenth century) and its counterpart in contract law, the bilateral executory promise—an arm’s-length deal, fully specifying the terms of a bargain that is exhausted in a single performance.

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Index administrative Fordism, 86–87, 110, 185, 187 agency, 8, 145 enhancement of, 188, 214 agriculture market and, 210–11 mass production and, 87–88 scientific, 6, 53, 88, 163 transferring resources to industry from, 12, 15, 85–86, 161, 219 in US, 88, 209–10 Alphabet (company), 59 antitrust law, 66–67 artificial intelligence, 2, 21, 41, 42, 94, 223 belated Fordism, 15, 165, 166–67 Bentham, Jeremy, 229, 273 bilateral executory contract, 48, 102, 222, 245 Brazil, 164–70 entrepreneurial impulse in, 166, 168–69 industry in, 164–66 Britain, 32, 151, 210–11 capital access to, 119, 123, 125, 184 human, 160 labor’s relations with, 63–64, 184–86, 221, 224–25 providers and takers of, 221 social, 49–51, 105 venture, 119–20, 194 capital appreciation, 58 capitalism inclusive knowledge economy and, 236–37 Marx on, 32, 172, 210, 237, 266, 268 moral presuppositions of, 47–48 no in-built structure of, 179–80, 228, 236 “varieties of,” 179, 228 See also market economy and order China, 55, 141, 162, 199 Christensen, Clayton, 216 civil society, 110, 134 government and, 87, 157, 187 classical economics. See economics – classical closed-list thesis, 118, 235 coercion, 266–68 cognitive psychology, 42 collective bargaining, 64, 102 collective dictatorship, 140–41 collective difference, 148–49 combined and uneven development, 90, 137, 172, 186 comparative advantage doctrine, 253 compensatory and corrective redistribution demand constraints and, 205–8 market economy and, 73–74 progressive taxation, 73, 74, 76, 78–80, 182, 205, 208 public spending, 205, 207–8 social entitlements and transfers, 64, 73–75, 76, 248 tax-and-transfer, 13, 64, 78, 207, 209 competition cooperation and, 49, 67, 103, 133–34 between large and small firms, 59–60 market, 253–56 competitive selection, 253–56 consumption growth of, 53 individual desire and, 239, 280 mass, 176, 204–5 surplus over current, 9, 32, 266, 278 taxes on, 75, 77–78, 79, 208 contract and property law, 48, 102, 109, 124 need for new approach to, 113–14, 262 cooperation capability for, 104–8, 109–10 competition and, 49, 67, 103, 133–34 education and, 95, 110 as form of free labor, 45, 69, 185–86, 222 imagination and, 81, 93 independent role of, 50–51 innovation and, 47, 48–50, 93, 106–7, 109–11 between workers and owners, 115 cooperative regime, 105, 107–8, 112 decentralized initiative/access and, 105–6, 115 raising level of, 104–7, 214 technical division of labor and, 20–21, 35–36 copyright, 127–28, 129, 130, 131, 132 corporatism, 65, 165, 176, 204 countercylical management, 176, 231, 247, 260 Creative Commons license, 132 data trading, 128, 129–30 debt, 123, 176, 199 demand expansion and, 193, 203–5 decentralization coordinated production plan and, 23 of economic activity, 22, 106, 115, 186, 222 inclusive knowledge economy and, 50, 255–56 unified property right and, 102, 125, 186, 237 demand constraints and expansion, 13, 213, 209 broadening access, 13, 195–96, 200–201, 203–7, 209, 213, 257–58 compensatory redistribution and, 205–7 debt and, 203–5 Keynes on, 200–201, 257–58 See also supply-demand relationship democracy devolution principle in, 152–55 direct, 143, 156, 157 economy and, 143–44, 187 education and, 97–98 engagement principle and, 155–58 group difference and, 146–49 impasse resolution and, 150–52 institutional forms of, 143, 144–45 politics and, 77, 97, 156, 279 weak, 141–42, 143, 146, 156, 173 desire, human, 280–81 developing countries, 164–70 inclusive vanguardism in, 167, 171–72 industrialization and, 159–60, 161, 162–63 international division of labor and, 161, 162–63 development economics, classical on agriculture-to-industry transfer, 12, 15, 85–86, 161 broken formula of, 163–64, 171, 212, 219–20 on education and institutions, 160–61 on industrialization, 159–60, 161, 167–68 on productivity, 85–86, 161, 212 devolution, 152–55 digital technology, 9, 19, 57 diminishing marginal returns knowledge economy’s potential to relax or reverse, 25–26, 28–29, 30, 31, 33, 130, 196, 213, 221, 279 persistence of, 61, 283 productivity and, 25, 28–29, 191 returns to scale and, 25–26 disaggregation of property, 126–27, 222 disequilibrium Keynesianism on, 201, 259–60 perpetual, 202–3 disruptive innovation, 216–19 distancing, 36–37 diversity group difference and, 146–49 knowledge economy and, 255–56 as task, 254–55 division of labor character of work and, 101–2, 283 international, 55–56, 161, 162–63, 167, 168 technical, 20–21, 23, 35–36, 37–39, 84, 94, 223–24 Durkheim, Émile, 105 economic flexibility economic security and, 68–69, 109, 178 social protection and, 77, 112, 177, 181 economic planning, 20, 23, 103, 161 economics deficiencies of main line of, 231–32 empirical research and, 240–43 history of, 233–38 ideas from within and without in, 270–73 imperative of structural vision in, 227–33 role of mathematics in, 273, 274–75 as social theory, 232, 263, 264, 268, 271, 274 See also development economics; fundamentalist economics; marginalist economics; post-marginalist economics economics – classical, 262–70 on capitalism as historical stage, 268–70 causal theories and explanations of, 263–65 on coercion, 267–68 small business and, 11, 12 Smith and, 232, 263, 271 value theory in, 265–66 economic security, 111–13 flexibility and, 68–69, 109, 178 labor and, 49, 67–68, 109 Edgeworth, Francis, 241, 273 Mathematical Psychics, 229 education cooperation and, 95, 110 democracy and, 97–98 depth of, 95 development economics on, 160 dialectical approach to, 96–97 effect on inequality of, 13–14 experimentalist impulse and, 138 imagination and, 95 inclusive knowledge economy requirements for, 50, 82, 93–99, 186 industrial mass production’s requirements in, 85 institutional requirements of, 99 method and subject matter of, 96 technical, 93–94 empiricism, 240–43 empowerment, 75, 178, 184, 224 of difference, 146, 149, 150, 152, 153, 157 freedom/democracy and, 145, 286 engagement principle, 155–58 entrepreneurial impulse, 126, 166, 168–69 equivocating economics, 244, 249–50 exchange-production relationship, 227, 251–52 experimentalism as impulse, 136, 138–40 inclusive knowledge economy and, 138, 186–87 scientific, 30–31 federalism, 153–54 finance, 184, 193–94 financial derivatives, 126 firms government and, 67, 119–20, 121–24, 130–31, 176 knowledge economy and, 7, 27, 224 relations among, 124 small businesses, 11–12, 54–55, 77, 165, 170 supply/demand and, 215–19 flexsecurity, 67–68, 112 Ford, Henry, 16, 39, 196 Fordism administrative, 86–87, 110, 185, 187 belated, 15, 165, 166–67 See also industrial mass production fragmentary theory, 271–72, 273, 276 France, 152, 154, 211 freedom constraint and, 283–84 empowerment and, 286 imagination and, 287 free labor, 45, 69, 185–86, 222–23, 282, 286 frozen fighting, 234 fundamentalist economics, 244, 245–47 Germany, 89, 93 government civil society and, 87, 157, 187 firms and, 67, 119–20, 121–24, 130–31, 176 monetary policies of, 181, 203–4, 247–48, 249, 260 private venture capital and, 119 relations between central and local, 153–54 rewards for innovation by, 132–33, 134 government regulation, 53–54, 177, 181, 182 arms-length model of, 121–22 group difference, 146–49 Hansen, Alvin, 8, 9 Harrington, James, 105 Hayek, Friedrich, 245 human capital, 160 hyper-insular vanguardism developing countries and, 162 inequality and, 72 labor and, 63, 65–66 pseudo-vanguardism and, 59–60 imagination classical economics’ underestimation of, 266–68 cooperation and, 81, 93 education and, 95 freedom and, 287 institutional, 155, 243–50, 254, 264–65 as knowledge economy requirement, 37, 39–40, 93, 95, 186, 286–87 mind as, 36–37, 43, 81, 99–100, 186–87, 287 negative capability and, 43–44 production and, 37, 39, 40, 286–87 impasse resolution, 150–52 inclusive vanguardism.

Pivotal Decade: How the United States Traded Factories for Finance in the Seventies by Judith Stein

1960s counterculture, accelerated depreciation, activist lawyer, affirmative action, airline deregulation, Alan Greenspan, anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, barriers to entry, Berlin Wall, blue-collar work, Bretton Woods, business cycle, capital controls, centre right, collective bargaining, Credit Default Swap, crony capitalism, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, desegregation, do well by doing good, Dr. Strangelove, energy security, Fall of the Berlin Wall, falling living standards, feminist movement, financial deregulation, floating exchange rates, full employment, Glass-Steagall Act, Gunnar Myrdal, guns versus butter model, Ida Tarbell, income inequality, income per capita, intermodal, invisible hand, knowledge worker, laissez-faire capitalism, Les Trente Glorieuses, liberal capitalism, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, manufacturing employment, market bubble, Martin Wolf, new economy, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, open economy, Paul Samuelson, payday loans, post-industrial society, post-oil, price mechanism, price stability, Ralph Nader, RAND corporation, reserve currency, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, Simon Kuznets, strikebreaker, three-martini lunch, trade liberalization, union organizing, urban planning, urban renewal, War on Poverty, Washington Consensus, working poor, Yom Kippur War

Only William Miller, who had replaced Blumenthal as secretary of the treasury, supported the agreement and helped untie the final knots.62 Unlike most of Carter’s advisers, Miller came from industry, not the academy, and so understood the give and take of collective bargaining. In the end, Carter’s political advisers convinced him that the reelection in 1980 rode on the agreement with labor.63 The AFL-CIO would fill five of the fifteen seats on the new Pay Advisory Committee. Another five seats would go to business, and the remaining five would represent the general public. One of the public representatives was John Dunlop, the ultimate collective bargainer.64 The committee would advise the CWPS on pay standards. Whether the council was required to adopt the suggestions was deliberately left fuzzy.

…

Ray Marshall, another PhD in economics. AFL-CIO chief George Meany had urged Carter to appoint John Dunlop, the Harvard labor economist who had been President Ford’s secretary of labor. Dunlop had resigned after Ford vetoed labor reform legislation that he had pledged to sign. Believing that robust collective bargaining was the essence of industrial democracy, Dunlop was the consummate negotiator. But representatives of blacks and women did not believe he was committed enough to airmative action, which would have made him a problematic pick for Carter.3 Marshall, whose southern origins added to his appeal, seemed better on airmative action because he had written about racial discrimination and manpower policy.

…

The second bill aimed to empower the powerless, a more politically appealing group, particularly southern workers. The South was the bastion of anti-unionism. The journalist Harry Golden declared that the people of Charlotte, North Carolina, would “elect Cassius Clay mayor if he would promise no unions and no collective bargaining.”21 Aggressive anti-union tactics and corporate violations of the labor law were a major reason why unions that had won 60 percent of representation elections, were winning only 46 percent now. The proposed reform would make it easier for workers to unionize by amending the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (better known as the Wagner Act, after its architect, Senator Robert Wagner of New York).

Rentier Capitalism: Who Owns the Economy, and Who Pays for It? by Brett Christophers

"World Economic Forum" Davos, accounting loophole / creative accounting, Airbnb, Amazon Web Services, barriers to entry, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Big Tech, book value, Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, British Empire, business process, business process outsourcing, Buy land – they’re not making it any more, call centre, Cambridge Analytica, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Cass Sunstein, cloud computing, collective bargaining, congestion charging, corporate governance, data is not the new oil, David Graeber, DeepMind, deindustrialization, Diane Coyle, digital capitalism, disintermediation, diversification, diversified portfolio, Donald Trump, Downton Abbey, electricity market, Etonian, European colonialism, financial deregulation, financial innovation, financial intermediation, G4S, gig economy, Gini coefficient, Goldman Sachs: Vampire Squid, greed is good, green new deal, haute couture, high net worth, housing crisis, income inequality, independent contractor, intangible asset, Internet of things, Jeff Bezos, Jeremy Corbyn, Joseph Schumpeter, Kickstarter, land bank, land reform, land value tax, light touch regulation, low interest rates, Lyft, manufacturing employment, market clearing, Martin Wolf, means of production, moral hazard, mortgage debt, Network effects, new economy, North Sea oil, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, patent troll, pattern recognition, peak oil, Piper Alpha, post-Fordism, post-war consensus, precariat, price discrimination, price mechanism, profit maximization, proprietary trading, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, remunicipalization, rent control, rent gap, rent-seeking, ride hailing / ride sharing, Right to Buy, risk free rate, Ronald Coase, Rutger Bregman, sharing economy, short selling, Silicon Valley, software patent, subscription business, surveillance capitalism, TaskRabbit, tech bro, The Nature of the Firm, transaction costs, Uber for X, uber lyft, vertical integration, very high income, wage slave, We are all Keynesians now, wealth creators, winner-take-all economy, working-age population, yield curve, you are the product

The first is that the impact of monopsony on wages is contingent: increasing monopsony drives down pay – and, extrapolated to the whole economy, labour’s share – only where workers are not covered by collective bargaining agreements. In other words, unionization, where present, serves as a bulwark against exploitation. But, as is well known, the neoliberal era has been one long period of union decline in the UK. In 1980, around 70 per cent of employees’ wages were set by collective bargaining.60 By 2018, the figure had plummeted to just 26 per cent for the workforce as a whole, and even lower – a paltry 15 per cent – in the private sector.61 The bulwark, then, has been removed.

…

Doward, ‘ “Second-Class” NHS Workers Struggle as Pay Gap Widens’, Guardian, 7 April 2019. 133. J. C. Wong, ‘Google Staff Condemn Treatment of Temp Workers in “Historic” Show of Solidarity’, Guardian, 2 April 2019. 134. J. Croft, ‘Outsourced University Workers Seek Collective Bargaining Rights’, Financial Times, 26 February 2019. 135. J. Croft, ‘High Court Dismisses Outsourced Workers’ Bid for Collective Bargaining Rights’, Financial Times, 25 March 2019. 136. Chakrabortty, ‘Some Call It Outsourcing’. 137. The number of PFI/PF2 deals contracted per annum plummeted from over sixty in 2007/08 to just one in 2016/17, PF2 having been used for just six projects in total by mid 2018.

…

It is most certainly not sustainable in a modern society.124 But, sustainable or not, this, it appears, is precisely where things now stand: the ‘dark days’ referred to by Tizard have indeed returned, and with a vengeance. As early as 2012, Ursula Huws and Sarah Podro sounded the alarm, painting a dismal picture of employment conditions for workers on both public- and private-sector contracts.125 Job security was limited. The scope for collective bargaining had been radically attenuated by the splintering of workforces. And, crucially, there was precious little evidence of either worker equality or cohesion, as even workers ‘performing the same role on the same site, who were previously colleagues, found themselves on differing terms and conditions’.126 Two years later, the Smith Institute released an equally damning report.

The Survival of the City: Human Flourishing in an Age of Isolation by Edward Glaeser, David Cutler

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, agricultural Revolution, Alvin Toffler, Andrei Shleifer, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Big Tech, Black Lives Matter, British Empire, business cycle, buttonwood tree, call centre, carbon footprint, Cass Sunstein, classic study, clean water, collective bargaining, Columbian Exchange, contact tracing, Corn Laws, Cornelius Vanderbilt, coronavirus, COVID-19, crack epidemic, defund the police, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, desegregation, discovery of penicillin, Donald Trump, Edward Glaeser, Elisha Otis, Fellow of the Royal Society, flying shuttle, future of work, Future Shock, gentrification, George Floyd, germ theory of disease, global pandemic, global village, hiring and firing, Home mortgage interest deduction, Honoré de Balzac, income inequality, industrial cluster, James Hargreaves, Jane Jacobs, Jevons paradox, job automation, jobless men, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Snow's cholera map, knowledge worker, lockdown, Louis Pasteur, Mahatma Gandhi, manufacturing employment, mass incarceration, Maui Hawaii, means of production, megacity, meta-analysis, new economy, New Urbanism, Occupy movement, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, out of africa, place-making, precautionary principle, RAND corporation, randomized controlled trial, remote working, Richard Florida, Salesforce, Saturday Night Live, Silicon Valley, Skype, smart cities, social distancing, Socratic dialogue, spinning jenny, superstar cities, Tax Reform Act of 1986, tech baron, TED Talk, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, TikTok, trade route, union organizing, universal basic income, Upton Sinclair, urban planning, working poor, Works Progress Administration, zero-sum game, zoonotic diseases

CNN reported that “on at least 20 occasions in that police officer’s 14-year career, citizens have filed complaints against Van Dyke.” The ensuing report of Chicago’s Police Accountability Task Force found that “the collective bargaining agreements between the police unions and the City have essentially turned the code of silence into official policy,” and that “even after a misconduct complaint is sustained, the collective bargaining agreements provide a grievance procedure that can minimize the severity of the punishment or overturn it completely.” A study by Dhammika Dharmapala, Richard McAdams, and John Rappaport of the University of Chicago investigates the impact of union contracts by examining a 2003 judicial decision in which “county sheriffs’ deputies won the right to organize for collective bargaining.”

…

A study by Dhammika Dharmapala, Richard McAdams, and John Rappaport of the University of Chicago investigates the impact of union contracts by examining a 2003 judicial decision in which “county sheriffs’ deputies won the right to organize for collective bargaining.” Those sheriffs’ deputies could be compared with municipal police departments that “had the right to bargain collectively both before and after that date.” The authors’ “estimates imply that collective bargaining rights led to a substantial increase in violent incidents of misconduct among sheriffs’ offices, relative to police departments.” Police unions will always try to protect their members.

…

., Police Contracts Shield Officers from Scrutiny and Discipline.” “on at least 20”: McLaughlin, “Chicago Officer Had History of Complaints before Laquan McDonald Shooting.” “the collective bargaining agreements”: Chicago Police Accountability Task Force, Recommendations for Reform: Restoring Trust between the Chicago Police and the Communities They Serve, 14, 85. “county sheriffs’”: Dharmapala, McAdams, and Rappaport, “Collective Bargaining Rights and Police Misconduct: Evidence from Florida,” 2. “estimates imply that”: Dharmapala, McAdams, and Rappaport, 1. “a program requiring officers”: Associated Press, “Boston Police Union Goes to Court after Officers’ Resistance to Wearing Body-Worn Cameras.”

The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again by Robert D. Putnam

affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alan Greenspan, Alvin Toffler, Arthur Marwick, classic study, clean water, collective bargaining, correlation does not imply causation, David Brooks, demographic transition, desegregation, different worldview, Donald Trump, Edward Glaeser, en.wikipedia.org, equal pay for equal work, financial deregulation, gender pay gap, ghettoisation, Gordon Gekko, greed is good, Gunnar Myrdal, guns versus butter model, Herbert Marcuse, Ida Tarbell, immigration reform, income inequality, Kenneth Arrow, knowledge economy, labor-force participation, laissez-faire capitalism, low skilled workers, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, mass immigration, mega-rich, meta-analysis, minimum wage unemployment, MITM: man-in-the-middle, obamacare, occupational segregation, open economy, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Overton Window, plutocrats, post-industrial society, Powell Memorandum, prosperity theology / prosperity gospel / gospel of success, public intellectual, road to serfdom, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, Scientific racism, Second Machine Age, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, strikebreaker, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Spirit Level, trade liberalization, Travis Kalanick, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, union organizing, Upton Sinclair, upwardly mobile, W. E. B. Du Bois, War on Poverty, white flight, women in the workforce, working poor, Works Progress Administration, yellow journalism

This time union efforts proved more durable, and union membership would not fall below the new high-water mark for the rest of the century.74 Strikes became the workers’ weapon of choice in the struggle with management, and in the decades after 1870 America acquired “the bloodiest and most violent labor history of any industrial nation in the world.”75 On neither side was this tussle a polite effort to seek compromise through collective bargaining. Both sides used violence—from the notorious street battles of the Homestead steel strike in 1892, to the equally violent Pullman strike in Chicago in 1894, to the anthracite coal strike in Pennsylvania in 1902. In 1894 Democratic president Grover Cleveland and his attorney general, Richard Olney, crafted a strategy to use court injunctions to break the Pullman strike, but by 1902 the Progressive Republican president Teddy Roosevelt appointed the Anthracite Coal Commission that ended the miners’ strike, giving de facto recognition to the union.

…

Union blunders, including irksome public sector strikes and revelations of union corruption, especially in the Teamsters Union, which damaged the public legitimacy of unions.83 The devitalization of unions as a site for social connection, in part because of growing individualism on part of younger workers, who preferred watching television in isolating suburbs to bowling with the guys in the union hall, a factor to which we shall return in Chapter 4.84 Social connections like these waned in importance across the country after the 1960s, reducing the role of unions to mere collective bargaining agents. The ups and downs of union membership had important economic consequences, but the underlying causes of these fluctuations were as much political, sociological, and cultural as merely economic. What does a comparison of the trends in income equality in Figure 2.8 with the trends in union membership in Figure 2.12 tell us?

…

During the Great Convergence unions increased the incomes of what would otherwise have been low-income households, thus compressing the income distribution.87 Conversely, the decline of unions has fostered income inequality during the Great Divergence.88 Only a fraction of these effects comes from the direct impact of collective bargaining on the incomes of union members.89 Studies have found that unionization had an equalizing impact even on the nonunionized labor force,90 on broader norms of equity,91 and on CEO pay during the Great Convergence.92 During the Great Convergence unions also provided powerful support for political forces that were working for greater income equality.

The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being in Charge Isn’t What It Used to Be by Moises Naim

"World Economic Forum" Davos, additive manufacturing, AOL-Time Warner, barriers to entry, Berlin Wall, bilateral investment treaty, business cycle, business process, business process outsourcing, call centre, citizen journalism, Clayton Christensen, clean water, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collective bargaining, colonial rule, conceptual framework, corporate governance, creative destruction, crony capitalism, deskilling, disinformation, disintermediation, disruptive innovation, don't be evil, Evgeny Morozov, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial deregulation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, illegal immigration, immigration reform, income inequality, income per capita, intangible asset, intermodal, invisible hand, job-hopping, Joseph Schumpeter, Julian Assange, Kickstarter, Lewis Mumford, liberation theology, Martin Wolf, mega-rich, megacity, military-industrial complex, Naomi Klein, Nate Silver, new economy, Northern Rock, Occupy movement, open borders, open economy, Peace of Westphalia, plutocrats, price mechanism, price stability, private military company, profit maximization, prosperity theology / prosperity gospel / gospel of success, radical decentralization, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, seminal paper, Silicon Valley, Skype, Steve Jobs, The Nature of the Firm, Thomas Malthus, too big to fail, trade route, transaction costs, Twitter Arab Spring, vertical integration, Washington Consensus, WikiLeaks, World Values Survey, zero-sum game

But as much as unions get credit for major breakthroughs in working life, at least in rich countries (“the folks who brought you the weekend,” as the American sticker slogan says), the story of the great trade unions for several decades now has been one of decline. The numbers vary, and not every comparison is valid given the differences in structures from country to country. Still, both union density (the percentage of workers who are members of unions) and bargaining coverage (the percentage of workers covered by a collective bargaining agreement, whether they themselves are union members or not) have been declining in most OECD countries, in some cases steeply. In the United States, union density has plummeted from 36 percent after World War II to just 12 percent today. In the private sector, the drop has been even sharper, from about one-third half a century ago to less than 8 percent now.

…

Fast-forward three decades, to a protest held at the National Mall in 2010, and the labor unions could pull together only a small fraction of that number, with turnout lower than at Glenn Beck’s Tea Party rally five weeks earlier.22 And in 2012 another important defeat confirmed the waning power of the US labor movement as, despite a massive effort, unions failed to win a recall election against Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin. The causes of this general decline include familiar factors: globalization and technological innovation have made it easier for employers to move jobs to other countries or to eliminate them altogether, changing the balance of power in favor of employers. Though the point of collective bargaining might have been precisely to protect workers from this situation, the forces that gathered in favor of flexible and global labor markets, often supported by governments ideologically committed to market-oriented reforms, usually proved too strong. Moreover, unionization historically thrived in industries and occupations that rely on unskilled labor, which is easier to organize.

…

And like their predecessors in factories and warehouses, all of them were driven by an aspiration to better themselves and achieve the gains that first lured them to the United States. Led by Andy Stern, recognized as an innovator not just in American labor but also in politics and social mobilization,23 the union secured major victories with collective bargaining deals for some of the most vulnerable workers in the United States, such as janitors and child-care workers, many of whom work multiple part-time jobs and do not speak good English.24 Historically, these groups had been neglected by a union movement focused on factories and traditional industries.

Big Data and the Welfare State: How the Information Revolution Threatens Social Solidarity by Torben Iversen, Philipp Rehm

23andMe, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, algorithmic bias, barriers to entry, Big Tech, business cycle, centre right, collective bargaining, COVID-19, crony capitalism, data science, DeepMind, deindustrialization, full employment, George Akerlof, income inequality, information asymmetry, invisible hand, knowledge economy, land reform, lockdown, loss aversion, low interest rates, low skilled workers, microbiome, moral hazard, mortgage debt, Network effects, new economy, obamacare, personalized medicine, Ponzi scheme, price discrimination, principal–agent problem, profit maximization, Robert Gordon, speech recognition, subprime mortgage crisis, tail risk, The Market for Lemons, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, union organizing, vertical integration, working-age population

Younger workers, either individually (as in the case of American 401(k)s or individual retirement accounts [IRAs]) or collectively (as in the case of collectively bargained occupational plans in Europe), have gradually moved into funded systems, which are usually defined-contribution (but not necessarily: annuities would be defined-benefit). Privately funded systems now make up an average of 72 percent of GDP (2017), up from 37 percent in 2002 (OECD 2018c). This shift has important implications for inequality. First, there is little or no redistribution going on in funded systems because benefits are directly tied to contributions (with some qualifications for collectively bargained plans). Where pension schemes are individualized, a second source of inequality is information about optimal investment strategies, which typically increases with income and education.

…

., 17 Calico, 62 Canada, 90, 102, 107 CAT scans, 1 Clareto, 77–78 Clinton, Bill, 116 Code on Genetics, 93 coercion, 15, 25 collective bargaining, 64, 159, 195 commercial banks, 116–117, 131n14 commercial insurance: customer exclusions and, 193; digitalization and, 76; mutual aid societies (MASs) and, 45–50, 54–55, 67; unemployment insurance funds (UIFs) and, 66 Comparative Political Data Set, 102 Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES), 176 COVID-19 pandemic, 61, 74, 77, 86n20, 100, 189 credible information, 28, 38, 39 credit guarantee schemes (CGSs), 115 credit markets: access to, 105–106; adverse selection and, 112; banks and, 105 (see also banks); collective bargaining and, 64, 159, 193; default and, 108–120, 128, 131–136, 141–146, 196–197; democracy and, 105, 117; discretionary income and, 100, 105, 108–115, 118, 138, 140, 142, 196; education and, 7, 33, 110, 115, 138, 141; empirical applications and, 196– 198; employment and, 108, 133–135; FICO scores and, 121–130, 149, 151– 158; flat-rate benefits and, 37, 114–115, 132, 144–146; Germany and, 107, 131, 135n23, 147; Gini coefficient and, 121– 127, 129, 138; government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) and, 116–121; historical perspective on, 64–65; homeownership and, 108, 116, 131–140; inequality and, 106–115, 118–131, 138, 140, 144, 196–198; information and, 64– 65, 112–113; interest rates and, 105, 108, 111–132, 138–144, 152, 156; liquidity and, 109; loans and, 118–119 (see also loans); middle class and, 106; model for, 110–117, 141–144; mortgages and, 131 (see also mortgages); partisanship and, 118; pensions and, 64–65, 114, 131n14, 135n20, 141; Placebo outcomes and, 126–127, 146, 156–157; poor people and, 115, 133–140, 196; poverty and, 115; redistribution and, 109, 115, 124, 128, 144; reform and, 116–117, 120, 131– 137, 140; regression analysis and, 125– 126, 127, 130, 146, 147–158; regulation and, 14, 109–111, 115–131, 138, 140; rich people and, 133–137, 140, 196; risk and, 105, 108–120, 128–146; savings and loans (S&Ls), 116–117; segmentation and, 40, 159, 192; Single Family LoanLevel Dataset and, 121; subsidies and, 109, 116, 118, 131n14, 138, 139, 144; taxes and, 114–115, 139, 144; transfers and, 109, 114–115, 144; unemployment and, 108–109, 131–138; United States and, 106–107, 109, 117, 121, 124, 131, 139–140; wealth and, 108, 110, 111n2, 133, 140; welfare and, 105, 108–115, 131–138, 140 credit reports, 76 crime, 21n4 CT scans, 27, 83 deductibles, 17, 50, 195 DeepMind, 62 default: credit markets and, 108–120, 128, 131–136, 141–146, 196–197; flat-rate benefits and, 144–146; historical perspective on, 63; income relationship and, 146; information and, 7; private markets and, 80; theoretical model and, 17 democracy: asymmetric information and, 22–25; credit markets and, 105, 117; future issues, 199; historical perspective on, 51–52, 56, 63–64, 67–68; inequality and, 12, 70, 188; intergenerational https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009151405.009 Published online by Cambridge University Press Index transfers and, 190; labor markets and, 163, 183; market failure and, 19–30; mutual aid societies (MASs) and, 16; private markets and, 13, 70, 73, 89, 100; rich people and, 2, 73, 183; social protection and, 2, 56; symmetric information and, 25–29; theoretical model and, 16, 19–20, 30, 32nn15–16, 33; transfers and, 16, 30, 67, 190; uncertainty and, 8; welfare and, 8 Denmark, 8–9, 90, 92, 102, 107, 109, 117, 147, 183, 193, 197–198 Department of Motor Vehicles, 75 destitution, 45, 67 diagnostics, 10, 27, 49, 62, 81, 83–88, 94, 100, 193 digitalization, 76–79 disability, 34, 38, 44, 63, 75, 139, 197 Discovery Limited, 79 discretionary income: credit markets and, 100, 105, 108–115, 118, 138, 140, 142, 196; risk and, 100, 105, 108–115, 138; welfare and, 110–111 discrimination, 2, 5, 35, 38–39, 63, 81, 88, 93–94, 100, 116, 199, 202 “double payment” problem, 9, 13, 37, 39, 68, 89, 92, 94–95, 100, 198–199 education: additional schooling, 107; advantages of, 200; credit markets and, 7, 33, 110, 115, 138, 141; double-payment problem and, 9; employment and, 11, 33, 60, 66, 69, 159, 161–162, 165, 174, 179, 183–184, 192, 197–198; health and, 9, 60, 66, 84, 93, 95–96, 159, 192–193, 197; income and, 9, 11, 17, 33, 60, 64, 69, 92–96, 110, 115, 138, 141, 161, 174, 192, 197; labor markets and, 159, 161– 162, 165, 167, 174, 179, 183–184, 198; mutual aid societies (MASs) and, 192; private markets and, 84, 92–95, 96n24; rich people and, 9, 40, 60, 92, 95; risk and, 7, 11, 17, 33, 40, 60, 66, 69, 84, 93, 115, 138, 141, 159, 161–162, 165, 174, 179, 183–184, 192, 197n3, 198; social media and, 196; unemployment and, 11, 60, 66, 159, 161–162, 165, 174, 179, 183–184, 192, 197n3, 198 elasticity, 111 elderly: health and, 2, 7, 18, 29, 34, 96–97, 99; higher expenses of, 195; insecurity 221 and, 8, 18; labor markets and, 159, 171, 173, 185–186; market feasibility and, 16– 18, 30–35; Medicare and, 2, 7, 9, 17, 59– 60, 96–99, 133; mutual aid societies (MASs) and, 44, 47–49, 55; old-age insurance and, 4–5, 13, 31, 159; pensions and, 56 (see also pensions); poverty and, 46–47; private markets and, 18, 96–97; public spending on, 29n13; time inconsistency and, 7, 16–18, 30–35, 47, 56, 89, 96, 193; welfare and, 4, 7–8, 13– 14, 18, 33, 53–54, 58, 105, 188, 193, 199 electronic health records (EHRs), 76–79 empirical implications of theoretical models (EITM) approach, 201 Employee Retirement Income Security Act, 50n2, 60–61 employment: credit markets and, 108, 133– 135; education and, 11, 33, 60, 66, 69, 159, 161–162, 165, 174, 179, 183–184, 192, 197–198; health insurance and, 2, 4– 5, 10, 13, 18, 20, 34–35, 44, 50–51, 55, 58, 60, 66, 159–160, 191–192, 197; historical perspective on, 50, 58, 66, 69n9; homeownership and, 134–137; insiders vs. outsiders and, 66; Job Pact and, 182; labor market risks and, 159, 162, 165, 167, 174n9, 179–181, 184; Law on Employment Protection, 180; mobility and, 49, 66, 68, 189, 191–192, 200; mutual aid societies (MASs) and, 48– 49 (see also mutual aid societies (MASs); retirement and, 33 (see also retirement); sickness pay and, 44, 48; unemployment insurance funds (UIFs) and, 11, 14, 66, 177–184, 192, 198–199 employment protection, 159, 162, 180 Equitable Life Assurance Society, 49 error correction model (ECM), 87, 103 Esping-Andersen, Gosta, 52, 199 European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (EOHSP), 93 European Social Survey (ESS), 174, 176, 186–187 Fair Housing Act, 12, 116n7 Fannie Mae, 65, 109, 116–117, 121 Federal Housing Administration (FHA), 117 FICO score: Gini coefficient and, 121–127, 129, 138; interest rates and, 121–130; loans and, 121–130, 149, 151–158 https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009151405.009 Published online by Cambridge University Press 222 Index financial crises, 14, 61, 65, 116n7 financialization, 7, 14, 16, 33, 65, 106–110, 115, 138–139 Finland, 90, 102, 107, 147 Fitbit, 79 flat-rate benefits, 37, 114–115, 132, 144–146 Food and Drug Administration, 62 Foote, Christopher, 120–121, 131 Fordism, 47, 106, 162 fragmentation: information revolution and, 58–67; labor markets and, 50n2; political polarization and, 2; risk pools and, 2, 12, 188; solidarity and, 58–67; unemployment insurance and, 11–12 France, 80, 90, 102, 107, 147 fraternal sciences, 47, 52 Freddie Mac, 65, 109, 116–130, 140n25, 197 Friedman, Rachel, 15n1, 19, 191 funded systems: adverse selection and, 45; information and, 18; intergenerational transfers and, 7; pension systems, 7, 17, 33, 53, 55, 58, 64, 193, 201; retirement and, 16, 33, 45, 64, 96; transfers and, 7, 16, 47, 64, 96 GDP, 64, 70, 83, 86n21, 87–91, 104, 139 Generali, 80 genetics, 18, 38, 62–63, 81–88, 93–94, 191, 193 German General Social Survey (ALLBUS), 171–172, 173, 185–186 German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), 134–137, 165–172 Germany, 195; credit markets and, 107, 131, 135n23, 147; Hartz reforms and, 14, 65, 131–137, 140, 198; health insurance and, 17; health savings plans and, 7, 33; labor markets and, 165–172, 173, 185– 186, 198; private markets and, 80, 89n23, 90, 91, 96n25, 102; unemployment and, 14, 65, 165, 168– 173, 185–186, 198 Ghent system, 177, 179–180, 182, 184, 198 Gingrich, Jane R., 59 Gini coefficient, 121–127, 129, 138 Goering, John, 116n7 good state, 20–21, 25n9, 40, 41, 112n5, 114, 142n27, 143–144 Google, 62, 73 Gordon, Robert, 49 Gottlieb, Daniel, 48, 50n3 government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), 116–121 GPS, 3 Great Depression, 30, 46, 117, 189 Grogan, Colleen M., 99 group plans, 49–50 Hacker, Jacob, 60 Hall, John, 93 Hariri, Jacob Gerner, 109 Harsanyi, John, 15–16 Hartz IV reforms, 14, 65, 131–137, 140, 198 health: data devices and, 62–63; diagnostics and, 10, 27, 49, 62, 81, 83–88, 94, 100, 193; disease, 10, 44, 62, 67, 79, 84, 86– 87, 100–102; education and, 9, 60, 66, 84, 93, 95–96, 159, 192–193, 197; elderly and, 2, 7, 18, 29, 34, 96–97, 99; genetics and, 18, 38, 62–63, 81–88, 93– 94, 191, 193; rich people and, 2, 4, 8–9, 58, 60, 91, 95, 193; younger generation and, 4, 6–7, 13, 17–18, 30–31, 48, 56, 67, 86, 92, 96, 101, 193–195 Healthcare NExt, 81 Health Information Technology and Economic and Clinical Health Act, 76 health insurance: Affordable Care Act (ACA), 11, 50n2, 60–61, 63, 91, 94, 97; artificial intelligence (AI) and, 81–82; choice between public/private, 94–99; electronic health records (EHRs), 76–79; empirical applications and, 193–196; employment and, 2, 4–5, 10, 13, 18, 20, 34–35, 44, 50–51, 55, 58, 60, 66, 159– 160, 191–192, 197; guaranty associations and, 33; historical perspective on, 44, 49– 51, 55, 58, 60–64; illness and, 8, 13–14, 20, 25, 48, 62–63, 75, 96, 108, 110, 171, 173, 185–186, 188; information and, 4– 8, 11, 13, 60–64, 192–196; laboratories and, 81, 83, 87; labor markets and, 159; medical data and, 75; Medical Information Bureau (MIB) and, 72n4, 75, 78–79; prescription databases and, 75, 77; private markets and, 70–102, 104, 201; Republican Party and, 94; as second largest insurance, 70; segmentation and, 70; supplementary private, 88–94; https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009151405.009 Published online by Cambridge University Press Index theoretical model and, 17–19, 33–37; trackers and, 76, 79–81, 100; underwriting and, 17, 92–94, 100; voluntary private, 63, 89–93 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), 63n8, 78 health savings plans, 7, 17, 33, 96, 195 HealthVault, 62 Hicks, Timothy, 59, 197n3 high information, 8, 10, 25–27, 38, 56–58, 64, 82n17, 200 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA), 120n10 homeownership: credit markets and, 108, 116, 131–140; employment and, 134– 137; GSEOP and, 134–137; Hartz IV reforms and, 14; mortgages and, 106 (see also mortgages); private markets and, 93; Sample Survey of Income and Expenditure (EVS) and, 134–135, 137; stratified rates of, 198; subsidies and, 131, 138–139, 197; VPHI and, 93; welfare and, 131–138 homophily, 164 housing, 11–12, 115–117, 121, 132–133, 138–141, 192 Human API portal, 77–78 human genome, 62, 81, 83 IBM, 62 Ignacio Conde-Ruiz, J., 53 illness, 8, 13–14, 20, 25, 48, 62–63, 75, 96, 108, 110, 171, 173, 185–186, 188 immigrants, 46, 167 individual retirement accounts (IRAs), 47, 64, 193 industrialization, 17, 96n25; deindustrialization and, 12, 30, 179, 188– 189; health insurance and, 195; historical perspective on, 44, 49, 51, 56; knowledge economy and, 192; middle class and, 6, 15, 51, 53–54; mutual aid societies (MASs) and, 44, 190; uncertainty and, 189; urbanization and, 189 inequality: credit markets and, 106–115, 118–131, 138, 140, 144, 196–198; democracy and, 12, 70, 188; future issues and, 201; Hartz IV reforms and, 14; historical perspective on, 59–61, 64–65; increased, 2, 7, 14, 16, 19, 33, 59, 61, 64– 65, 70–71, 100, 106, 108–113, 118, 128, 223 130, 138, 140, 188–189, 197–198, 201; information and, 2, 5, 7, 12, 14; labor markets and, 198; mortgages and, 119– 131; private markets and, 70–71, 82, 92, 100; reduction of, 92, 112, 118, 138, 188–189, 198; regulation and, 119–131; risk and, 2, 7, 12, 14, 19, 33, 59–61, 65, 82, 92, 100, 108, 111–114, 130, 138, 144, 188–189, 196–198, 201; segmentation and, 59, 61, 188–189, 196; taxes and, 19, 60, 100, 188–189; theoretical model and, 16, 19, 33 information: actuarial science and, 49 (see also actuarial science); asymmetric, 2–4, 8, 15, 20–27, 38, 39, 55, 56, 63, 74, 82n17, 160, 190, 199, 202; Big Data, 5, 13, 22, 63, 108, 119, 138, 191; credible, 28, 38, 39; credit markets and, 64–65, 112–113; Department of Motor Vehicles and, 75; diagnostics and, 10, 27, 49, 62, 81–88, 94, 100, 193; division of insurance pools and, 5–10; electronic health records (EHRs) and, 76–79; funded systems and, 18; health insurance and, 4–8, 11, 13, 60–64, 192–196; high, 8, 10, 25–27, 38, 56–58, 64, 82n17, 200; human genome, 62, 81, 83; incomplete, 2, 12, 18, 29, 55, 66; inequality and, 2, 5, 7, 12, 14, 119–131; laboratories and, 81, 83, 87; labor markets and, 160–165; life insurance and, 4–7, 10, 13, 72–73, 82– 88, 101–103, 104, 193–193; loans and, 112–113, 118–119; low, 8, 10, 14, 18, 25–26, 28, 38, 39, 56, 57, 67, 199; market failure and, 6, 9, 19–30, 190; market feasibility and, 16–19, 30–37, 46, 58, 160, 199; Medical Information Bureau (MIB) and, 72n4, 75, 78–79; Moore’s Law and, 61–62, 83n18; mortgages and, 119–131; mutual aid societies (MASs) and, 6, 8, 10–13, 199; ownership of, 202; pensions and, 64–65; preferences and, 18–19, 35–37; prescription databases and, 75, 77; privacy and, 10, 26–29, 40–42, 63, 78, 94, 202; regulation and, 2, 14, 18, 38, 63– 65, 70, 73, 81, 87–89, 93–94, 100, 110, 117–131, 140, 199, 202; revolution in, 2, 4, 13, 35, 39, 55, 58–73, 82, 88, 94, 100, 108, 188, 201; risk and, 1–15, 18–30, 35– 37, 160–165; segmentation and, 2, 5–6, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009151405.009 Published online by Cambridge University Press 224 Index 8, 11–14, 16, 18, 58–59, 66–67, 70, 89, 94, 159, 162, 165, 177, 180, 188–189, 192, 196; social insurance and, 2–13, 189–190, 193, 198; social solidarity and, 53–60; symmetric, 20, 25–29, 39, 55, 82n17; trackers and, 3–4, 29, 79–80, 191; uncertainty and, 16 (see also uncertainty); underwriting and, 74–75; unemployment insurance and, 65–67, 183; welfare and, 2–14 information and communication technology (ICT), 4, 8, 119, 131, 189 integration, 2, 5 interest rates: changing, 17; credit markets and, 105, 108, 111–132, 138–144, 152, 156; Denmark and, 198; equalization of, 65; FICO scores and, 121–130; Gini coefficient and, 121–127, 129, 138; mortgages, 14, 65, 116–124, 128, 138– 140, 197; segmentation and, 52, 58, 70 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 106, 107 Ireland, 90, 102, 107, 147 ISCO, 174 Italy, 90, 102, 107, 147, 203 Japan, 58, 66, 90, 91, 102, 107 Jawbone, 79 Job Pact, 182 John Hancock Life Insurance, 4, 29, 77–78, 80 Kaiser Family Foundation Poll, 99 Keen, Michael, 19 Korpi, Walter, 53, 193 laboratories, 81, 83, 87 labor markets: actuarial approach and, 160, 163n2, 177, 179, 184; collective bargaining and, 64, 159, 193; democracy and, 163, 183; disability and, 34, 38, 44, 63, 75, 139, 197; education and, 159, 161–162, 165, 167, 174, 179, 183–184, 198; elderly and, 159, 171, 173, 185– 186; empirical applications and, 198– 199; employment protection, 159, 162, 180; fragmentation and, 50n2; Germany and, 165–172, 173, 185–186, 198; Ghent system and, 177, 179–180, 182, 184, 198; health insurance and, 159; inequality and, 198; information and, 160–165; Law on Employment Protection, 180; market failure and, 184; partisanship and, 177, 183; poor people and, 160, 176; preferences and, 14, 66, 160, 163, 165– 177; public system and, 165, 177, 182– 183; redistribution and, 172, 174–176, 183, 186–187; reform and, 165, 177– 182, 198; regression analysis and, 166, 172, 173, 185–186; regulation and, 159; segmentation and, 14, 50, 67, 159, 162, 165, 177, 180, 182, 188, 192, 198; social insurance and, 159–160, 163, 177; subsidies and, 182, 185; Swedish unemployment insurance and, 177–183; taxes and, 159, 177, 180, 181; uncertainty and, 160, 163n2; unemployment protection, 46, 159, 164, 197n3; unions and, 159, 161, 164, 174, 177–184, 200; United States and, 66; voters and, 163–164, 184; wage protection, 159 Latin America, 66 Law on Employment Protection, 180 layoffs, 110 legal issues: clerical marriage, 44; discrimination, 116; intergenerational contracts and, 31; social media, 81; symmetric information and, 26 Lexis Nexis Risk Classifier, 76 life expectancy: adverse selection and, 45; historical perspective on, 45, 48–51; increased data on, 10, 45; predicting, 18, 193; premiums and, 17; private markets and, 72, 83–87; risk and, 34 life insurance: artificial intelligence (AI) and, 81–82; commercialization of, 45–50, 54– 55, 67; credit reports and, 76; Department of Motor Vehicles and, 75; diagnostics and, 10, 27, 49, 62, 81, 83– 88, 94, 100, 193; division of insurance pools and, 5, 7; electronic health records (EHRs) and, 76–79; empirical applications and, 193–196; funded plans and, 7, 16–18, 33, 45, 48, 53, 58, 96, 193–195; guaranty associations and, 33; historical perspective on, 44–49, 55, 58, 63; information and, 4–7, 10, 13, 72–73, 82–88, 101–103, 104, 193–193; laboratories and, 81, 83, 87; Lexis Nexis Risk Classifier and, 76; market penetration of, 82–88, 101–103, 104; https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009151405.009 Published online by Cambridge University Press Index Medical Information Bureau (MIB) and, 72n4, 75, 78–79; micro-targeted products and, 73; permanent, 72; prescription databases and, 75, 77; private markets and, 70–94, 100–102, 103–104; purpose of, 71–72; theoretical model and, 16–17, 29, 33–38; trackers and, 76, 79–81, 100; underwriting and, 71, 73–82, 87–88, 100–101 liquidity, 109 loans: access to, 65, 105–106, 110; bank, 65, 105, 116, 131–132, 202; credit markets and, 118–119; default and, 108 (see also default); discretionary income and, 100, 105, 108–115, 118, 138, 140, 142, 196; FICO scores and, 121–130, 149, 151–158; flat-rate benefits and, 37, 114–115, 132, 144–146; Gini coefficient and, 121–127, 129, 138; Hartz reform and, 65, 132; inequality and, 119–131; information and, 112–113, 118–119; interest rates and, 110 (see also interest rates); liquidity and, 109; model for, 110– 117, 141–144; mortgages, 110 (see also mortgages); private markets and, 83; regulation and, 115–131; risk and, 65, 100, 105, 108–109, 111–117, 130, 132, 138, 141–142, 196, 202; Single Family Loan-Level Dataset and, 121; welfare and, 110–111, 113–115, 131–138 loan-to-value ratio, 124, 131, 156 Loewenstein, Lara, 120–121, 131 low information, 8, 10, 14, 18, 25–26, 28, 38, 39, 56, 57, 67, 199 lump sum payments, 33, 35–36, 114 McFadden pseudo R-squared measure, 166–172, 173, 185–186 Maclaurin, Colin, 45 market failure: asymmetric information and, 22–25; classic framework for, 19– 30; democracy and, 19–30; historical perspective on, 53, 57, 67; information and, 6, 9, 190; labor markets and, 184; mutual aid societies (MASs) and, 6, 67; private markets and, 94; redistribution and, 6, 12, 67, 191, 200; symmetric information and, 25–29; theoretical model and, 12, 15, 18–20, 29 market feasibility, 160, 199; historical perspective on, 46, 58; information and, 225 16–18, 30–35; preferences and, 18–19, 35–37; time inconsistency and, 16–18, 30–35 market-mediated funded systems, 201 Medicaid, 8, 10, 60, 68, 96–99, 193 Medical Information Bureau (MIB), 72n4, 75, 78–79 Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online, 84 Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), 84 Medicare, 2, 7, 9, 17, 59–60, 96–99, 193 Meltzer-Richard model, 114 Microsoft, 5, 62, 81 micro-tracking, 3 middle class: credit markets and, 106; education and, 199; industry and, 6, 15, 51, 53–54; mortgages and, 65, 106; preferences of, 59, 196, 200; private markets and, 69, 71, 92, 97, 200; theoretical model and, 5; universal public system and, 30; voters, 32, 51, 61, 193; welfare and, 6, 8, 13, 15, 54, 68–69, 193– 195, 199 Misfit, 79 MLC On Track, 80 mobility, 49, 66, 68, 189, 191–192, 200 Moore’s Law, 61–62, 83n18 moral hazard, 10, 45, 48, 184, 198 mortality: artificial intelligence (AI) and, 81–82; Lexis Nexis Risk Classifier and, 76; life expectancy and, 10, 17, 34, 45, 48–51, 72, 83–87, 193; private markets and, 72, 75–76, 79, 81, 84, 86, 101–102 mortgages: credit markets and, 106, 109– 140, 146, 147; FICO scores and, 121– 130, 149, 151–158; Gini coefficient and, 121–127, 129, 138; Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) and, 120n10; inequality and, 119–131; information and, 119–131; interest rates and, 14, 65, 116–124, 128, 138–140, 197; middle class and, 65, 106; private markets and, 198; redlining and, 11, 116, 202; regulation and, 14, 65, 109, 115, 117– 131, 138, 140, 197; risk and, 14, 65, 109, 115–117, 120, 128, 132, 134–138, 197, 202; Single Family Loan-Level Dataset and, 121; underwriting, 120, 207–208 Motor Vehicle Reports, 75 MRI scans, 1, 27, 83 Murray, Charles, 51–52 https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009151405.009 Published online by Cambridge University Press 226 Index mutual aid societies (MASs): asymmetric information and, 23, 25, 199; burial insurance, 47–48; commercialization of, 45–50, 54–55, 67; democracy and, 16; destitution and, 45, 67; double bind of, 48, 50, 54, 67, 190; dues to, 46; education and, 192; elderly and, 44, 47–49, 55; Equitable Life Assurance Society, 49; failure of, 12; heyday of, 51; historical perspective on, 10–11, 13, 44–57, 65, 67, 192; immigrants and, 46; increase of, 44; industrialization and, 44; information and, 6, 8, 10–13, 199; limitations of, 6; market failure and, 6, 67; New England Mutual Life Insurance Company, 49; New York Life Insurance Company, 49; as partial solution, 190; protections by, 44; role of, 11; Scottish Presbyterian Widows Fund, 44–46, 49, 83, 193; sickness pay and, 44, 48; solidarity and, 46, 53–58; taxes and, 47; theoretical model and, 15–16, 23, 25, 32; timeinconsistency and, 6–7, 16, 32, 45, 47– 48, 54, 56, 199; transfers and, 6, 48, 57– 58; unions and, 192; United States and, 44, 46, 49, 55; welfare and, 6, 8, 10, 12– 13, 15–16, 25, 48, 51–52, 54, 56; widespread use of, 44 National Human Genome Research Institute, 62 National Laboratory of Medicine, 84 Netherlands, 90, 91, 102, 107, 147 New England Mutual Life Insurance Company, 49 New York Life Insurance Company, 49 New York State Department of Financial Services, 80–81 New Zealand, 90, 102, 107 Norway, 90, 92, 102, 107, 147 Obama, Barack, 76, 81, 90 occupational unemployment rates (OURs), 174n0 OECD Health Statistics, 89, 101 opting out: adverse selection and, 30, 54, 199; Akerlof and, 24; Bismarckian system and, 53; cost of, 19, 29; deterrents against, 9; private markets and, 25; privileged, 15; public system and, 8–9, 15, 19, 24–25, 30, 37, 54, 57, 59, 64, 71, 89n23, 94–96; segmentation and, 8; selfinsurance and, 11–12, 20–22, 50n2, 51, 57, 60, 67, 73, 93, 190; theoretical model and, 15, 19, 24–25, 29–30, 37, 41 Oscar Health Insurance, 80 Palme, Joakim, 53, 193 Park, Sunggeun (Ethan), 99 participation, 9, 67, 95, 102, 184 partisanship: adverse selection and, 37; coercion and, 6; Comparative Political Data Set and, 102; credit markets and, 118; historical perspective on, 59; labor markets and, 177, 183; preferences and, 12, 19, 59, 200; private markets and, 71, 92, 94, 97, 101–102, 103–104, 195; regulation and, 37–38; theoretical model and, 37–38; welfare and, 12 pay-as-you-go (PAYG) systems: credible government commitment to, 7; historical perspective on, 46–48, 53–58, 64, 67; market-mediated funded systems and, 201; private markets and, 96; redistribution and, 16, 18, 32, 53, 64, 67; subsidies and, 18, 67; time-inconsistency and, 16, 31–35, 47, 56, 96, 191, 193; transfers and, 16, 47, 55, 191; voters and, 193; welfare and, 16, 18, 33, 48, 53, 193; younger generation and, 16, 18, 31, 33, 47–48, 56, 64, 67, 96, 193 pay-how-you-drive (PHYD), 3 pensions: credit-based insurance and, 64– 65; credit markets and, 64–65, 114, 131n14, 135n20, 141; funded systems and, 7, 17, 33, 53, 55, 58, 64, 193, 201; historical perspective on, 51, 53–60, 64– 65; information and, 64–65; marketmediated funded systems and, 201; PAYG and, 31 (see also pay-as-you-go (PAYG) systems); private markets and, 18, 36, 70, 82; taxes and, 19, 31 “piggy bank”, 12, 24 Placebo outcomes, 126–127, 148, 156–157 “Politics of Medicaid, The: Most Americans Are Connected to the Program, Support Its Expansion, and Do Not View It as Stigmatizing” (Grogan and Park), 99 Ponzi schemes, 48 poor people: attitudinal gap and, 176; becoming, 7; cost of insurance and, 30; credit markets and, 115, 133–140, 196; https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009151405.009 Published online by Cambridge University Press Index labor markets and, 160, 176; Medicaid and, 8, 10, 60, 68, 96–99, 193; Medicare and, 2, 7, 9, 17, 59–60, 96–99, 193; private markets and, 96, 98, 100; support of by rich people, 4; transfers and, 7–8, 55, 115, 200; welfare and, 68 (see also welfare) Portugal, 90, 102, 147 Potential Years of Life Lost (PYLL), 86–87, 101–102, 104 poverty: credit markets and, 115; destitution, 45, 67; elderly and, 46–47; fear of, 7–8; historical perspective on, 46– 47, 55, 67–68; insurance against, 7–9, 193; private markets and, 71, 96, 99; transfers and, 13 Precision Medicine Initiative, 81 preferences: bifurcation of, 30, 163; constrained, 9, 59, 199; divergence in, 192; first-best, 9, 95; formation of, 35– 37; increased information and, 18–19, 35–37; labor markets and, 14, 66, 160, 163, 165–177; market feasibility and, 18– 19, 35–37; mass, 18; middle class, 59, 196, 200; partisan, 12, 19, 59, 200; polarization of, 2, 9, 12, 14, 16, 20, 37, 39, 66–67, 163, 169, 172, 176, 184; policy, 11–12, 14, 19, 26, 37, 67, 172, 184; political, 160, 163–177, 184, 186; private markets and, 95, 96n24, 99; public spending and, 18, 37, 59, 95, 192; redistribution, 12, 16, 18, 21n4, 35, 172, 174, 200, 203; risk and, 2, 12, 14, 16, 18, 21, 26, 30, 35, 37, 39, 57, 59, 66–67, 160, 163–176, 184, 192, 199–200, 203; shaping, 19, 59, 66, 160, 200; uncertainty and, 16, 26, 66, 199; welfare and, 2, 9, 12, 18, 21, 30, 37, 39, 68, 203 prescription databases, 75, 77 Preston, Ian, 93 price discrimination, 38 price nondiscrimination, 39 privacy, 10, 26–29, 40–42, 63, 78, 94, 202 private markets: actuarial approach and, 72, 81, 83, 89, 99–100; adverse selection and, 72, 82n17, 83, 88; Big Data and, 13, 63, 191; democracy and, 13, 70, 73, 89, 100; education and, 84, 92–95, 96n24; elderly and, 18, 96–97; Germany and, 80, 89n23, 90, 91, 96n25, 102; health insurance and, 70–102, 104, 201; homeownership and, 227 93; inequality and, 70–71, 82, 92, 100; life expectancy and, 72, 83–87; life insurance and, 70–94, 100–102, 103– 104; market failure and, 94; middle class and, 69, 71, 92, 97, 200; mortality and, 72, 75–76, 79, 81, 84, 86, 101–102; mortgages and, 198; opting out and, 25; partisanship and, 71, 92, 94, 97, 101– 102, 103–104, 195; pay-as-you-go (PAYG) systems and, 96; pensions and, 18, 36, 70, 82; poor people and, 96, 98, 100; poverty and, 71, 96, 99; preferences and, 95, 96n24, 99; public system and, 71, 82, 91–97, 100; reform and, 89–92; regression analysis and, 83; regulation and, 19, 37–38, 70, 73, 80–81, 87–94, 97, 100, 102; risk and, 70–100; segmentation and, 2, 5, 8, 11, 13–14, 18, 40, 53, 58–59, 63, 67, 70, 89, 94, 165, 180, 196; social insurance and, 70, 96; subsidies and, 94; taxes and, 89, 92, 100; time-inconsistency and, 71, 89, 96–99; top-up plans and, 9, 89, 179–182, 195; transfers and, 80n15, 81, 96; uncertainty and, 101; unemployment and, 4; United States and, 8, 18, 44, 51, 70, 74, 77–84, 89n23, 90, 91–99, 102–103, 195; voters and, 101; wealth and, 70, 97, 100; welfare and, 19, 37–38, 70; younger generation and, 84–86, 92, 96–97, 101 professional associations, 49, 66, 159, 161, 164, 179 Profeta, Paola, 53 Prudential, 80 Prussia, 44 Przeworski, Adam, 19 public spending, 29n13, 37, 68, 139, 145, 192, 199 public system: historical perspective on, 54, 57, 59, 63–64; information and, 8–9; labor markets and, 165, 177, 182–183; left’s support for, 19, 37–38; opting out and, 8–9, 15, 19, 24–25, 30, 37, 54, 57, 59, 64, 71, 89n23, 94–96; private markets and, 71, 82, 91–97, 100; taxes and, 9, 15, 19, 25, 31, 37, 39, 54, 60, 195, 200; theoretical model and, 15–20, 24– 25, 28–30, 35, 37–40; top-up plans and, 9, 36, 89, 179–182, 195; uncertainty and, 8, 15–16, 30, 61, 67 Putnam, Robert, 203 https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009151405.009 Published online by Cambridge University Press 228 Index Qualcomm, 80 Rawls, John, 8, 15n1, 54, 67 recessions, 46, 189 reciprocity, 46, 203 Recovery Act, 76 redistribution: credit markets and, 109, 115, 124, 128, 144; division of insurance pools and, 5; historical perspective on, 46, 53, 58, 60, 64, 67; intergenerational, 32, 67; labor markets and, 172, 174–176, 183, 186–187; literature on, 21n4, 189; lumpsum benefits and, 36; market failure and, 6, 12, 67, 191, 200; pay-as-you-go (PAYG) systems, 16, 18, 32, 53, 64, 67; preferences and, 12, 16, 18, 21n4, 35, 172, 174, 200, 203; risk, 5, 17, 30, 38, 53, 58, 60, 172, 174–176, 183, 186–187, 197, 200; time-inconsistency and, 30; transfers and, 16, 30, 64, 109, 144, 188– 189, 200; welfare and, 6, 12, 16, 18, 21, 36, 38, 53, 56, 58, 68, 115, 188, 191, 197, 203; younger generation and, 16, 30, 64 redlining, 11, 116, 202 reform, 201; credit markets and, 116–117, 120, 131–137, 140; Hartz IV, 14, 65, 131–137, 140, 198; historical perspective on, 65, 67; labor markets and, 165, 177– 182, 198; private markets and, 89–92; regulation and, 14, 18, 65, 89, 117; Scottish Reformation, 44; unemployment, 14, 29, 65, 67, 131–137, 165, 177–182, 198; voters and, 18, 29 regression analysis: credit markets and, 125–126, 127, 130, 146, 147–158; discontinuity results and, 148; labor markets and, 166, 172, 173, 185–186; private markets and, 83 regulation: adverse selection and, 37–38; constraints from, 2, 63, 68, 94, 111; credit markets and, 14, 109–111, 115–131, 138, 140; historical perspective on, 50, 60–65, 68; inequality and, 119–131; of information, 2, 14, 18, 38, 63–65, 70, 73, 81, 87–89, 93–94, 100, 110, 117– 131, 140, 199, 202; labor markets and, 159; loans and, 115–131; mortgage markets and, 14, 65, 109, 115, 117–131, 138, 140, 197; partisanship and, 37–38; private markets and, 19, 37–38, 70, 73, 80–81, 87–94, 97, 100, 102; redistribution and, 172, 174–176, 183, 186–187; reform and, 14, 18, 65, 89, 117; risk and, 2, 14, 18–19, 33, 42, 50, 60–61, 64–65, 70, 73, 81, 89, 94, 109, 115–120, 130–131, 138, 140, 159, 195, 197, 199, 202; role of, 37–38, 115–118; segmentation and, 2, 6, 11–14, 16, 18, 40, 50, 52–53, 58–67, 70, 89, 94, 159, 162, 165, 177, 180, 188–189, 192–193, 196, 198; tax, 19, 50, 63, 115, 195, 199; trackers and, 80–81; welfare and, 37–38 Reinfeldt, Fredrick, 92, 177 Republican Party, 94 retirement: adverse selection and, 45; Employee Retirement Income Security Act and, 50n2, 60–61; funded systems and, 16, 33, 45, 64, 96; individual retirement accounts (IRAs), 47, 64, 193; pensions and, 64–65 (see also pensions); Social Security, 47, 67 rich people: attitudinal gap and, 176; credit markets and, 133–137, 140, 196; democracy and, 2, 73, 183; education and, 9, 40, 60, 92, 95; health and, 2, 4, 8– 9, 58, 60, 91, 95, 193; self-insurance and, 11–12, 20–22, 50n2, 51, 57, 60, 67, 73, 93, 190; selfinsuring by, 12, 22; support of poor by, 4 risk: adverse selection and, 1–2, 4, 6, 13, 30, 34, 45–46, 49–50, 54, 65, 67, 72, 82, 112, 199, 202; Akerlof model and, 6, 12, 19, 23–25, 27, 29, 190, 196; argument synopsis on, 189–192; average, 16, 22– 23, 24n7, 25n8, 28, 38, 54–55, 57, 59, 163n2; aversion to, 20, 22n6, 29n14, 36– 37, 41–42, 54, 56; credit markets and, 105, 108–120, 128–146; default, 144–146 (see also default); discretionary income and, 100, 105, 108–115, 138, 196; distribution of, 5, 16–17, 29–30, 38, 53–60, 108, 112, 128n13, 132, 140, 183, 189, 191, 197–200; education and, 7, 11, 17, 33, 40, 60, 66, 69, 84, 93, 115, 138, 141, 159, 161–162, 165, 174, 179, 183– 184, 192, 197n3, 198; flat-rate benefits and, 144–146; historical perspective on, 44–69; inequality and, 2, 7, 12, 14, 19, 33, 59–61, 65, 82, 92, 100, 108, 111–114, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009151405.009 Published online by Cambridge University Press Index 130, 138, 144, 188–189, 196–198, 201; information and, 1–15, 18–30, 35– 37, 160–165; labor markets and, 159– 185; Lexis Nexis Risk Classifier and, 76; life expectancy and, 34; loans and, 65, 105, 108–109, 111–112, 115–117, 130, 132, 141–142, 202; market failure and, 184 (see also market failure); medical data and, 75; moral hazard and, 10, 45, 48, 184, 198; mortgages and, 14, 65, 109, 115–117, 120, 128, 132, 134–138, 197, 202; pooling of, 1–16, 19, 22–29, 38–42, 50–51, 54–55, 58–68, 72, 128, 159–160, 171, 177, 179–180, 184–185, 188, 191, 200–203; preferences and, 2, 12, 14, 16, 18, 21, 26, 30, 35, 37, 39, 57, 59, 66–67, 160, 163–176, 184, 192, 199–200, 203; private markets and, 70–100; redistribution and, 5, 17, 30, 38, 53, 58, 60, 197, 200; regulation and, 2, 14, 18–19, 33, 42, 50, 60–61, 64–65, 70, 73, 81, 89, 94, 109, 115–120, 130–131, 138, 140, 159, 195, 197, 199, 202; segmentation and, 189; subsidies and, 1, 4, 11, 17–18, 23, 25, 28, 30, 54, 61, 67, 109, 116, 118, 185, 192, 197, 199; theoretical model and, 15–43; timeinconsistency and, 7, 30–35, 45, 47, 54, 56, 89, 96, 191, 199; traditional classification of, 3; uncertainty and, 8, 13, 16, 26, 30, 36, 56, 61, 66–67, 160, 163, 191, 196, 199; unemployment and, 5, 8– 14, 18, 20, 26, 29, 35, 44, 46, 51, 60, 65– 67, 108–109, 131–132, 136–138, 159– 166, 169, 171–174, 177–180, 183–184, 188, 191–192, 197–198; voters and, 18, 25, 29, 61, 64, 163, 184, 188–191, 197n3, 199; welfare and, 2, 6–30, 33, 36– 39, 48, 51–58, 68–69, 105, 108–109, 115, 138, 140, 188, 191, 193, 197, 201, 203 Rogers, Will, 108 Rothschild, Michael, 19, 25, 41 Rothstein, Bo, 52 Rueda, David, 162 Sample Survey of Income and Expenditure (EVS), 134–135, 137 SAP government, 182–183 savings: credit markets and, 114, 116–117, 133, 157; health savings plans and, 7, 17, 229 33, 96; private markets and, 96–97; wealth and, 1, 7–8, 17, 20–21, 29, 33–34, 36, 46–47, 51, 66, 96–97, 114, 116–117, 133, 136, 141, 160, 180, 190, 193 savings and loans (S&Ls), 116–117 Scottish Mutual, 55 Scottish Presbyterian Widows Fund, 44–46, 49, 83, 193 Scottish Reformation, 44 segmentation: choice and, 8; concept of, 6; credit markets and, 40, 159, 192; health insurance and, 70; historical perspective on, 50, 52–53, 58–59, 61, 63, 66–67; inequality and, 59, 61, 188–189, 196; information and, 2, 5–8, 11–18, 58–59, 66–67, 70, 89, 94, 159, 162, 165, 177, 180, 188–189, 192, 196; information levels and, 2, 5; integration and, 2, 5; interest rates and, 52, 58, 70; labor markets and, 14, 50, 67, 159, 162, 165, 177, 180, 182, 188, 192, 198; opting out and, 8; private markets and, 2, 5, 8, 11, 13–14, 18, 40, 53, 58–59, 63, 67, 70, 89, 94, 165, 180, 196; regulation and, 2, 70, 89, 94; risk and, 2, 6, 11, 13–14, 16, 18, 40, 50, 52–53, 58–59, 61, 63, 66–67, 70, 89, 94, 159, 162, 165, 177, 180, 188– 189, 192–193, 196, 198; state programs and, 11, 18, 50, 52–53, 159, 188; theoretical model and, 16, 18, 40; unemployment insurance and, 177–183; welfare and, 8, 18, 52–53, 188 self-insurance, 11–12, 20–22, 50n2, 51, 57, 60, 67, 73, 93, 190 self-interest, 19, 29, 52, 191 Shapley decomposition, 169, 170, 170 sickness pay, 44, 48 Single Family Loan Level Dataset, 121 social capital, 51–52, 203 social insurance: future politics of, 199–201; historical perspective on, 44, 51–52, 54, 56–60, 65, 67; information and, 2–13, 189–190, 193, 198; labor markets and, 159–160, 163, 177; private markets and, 70, 96; theoretical model and, 15, 19, 21n4, 30, 35, 37, 39 social media, 80–81 social networks, 11–12, 14, 18, 25, 66–67, 164, 183–184, 196 Social Security, 47, 67 https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009151405.009 Published online by Cambridge University Press 230 Index solidarity: COVID-19 pandemic and, 61; cross-class, 8, 14, 18, 203; emergence of, 53–58; fragmentation of, 58–67; information revolution and, 58–67, 71, 201; mutual aid societies (MASs) and, 46, 53–58; reciprocity and, 203; uncertainty and, 66, 160, 196; unemployment insurance and, 183, 192; welfare and, 8, 18, 40n21, 201, 203 Spain, 90, 102, 147 Stiglitz, Joseph, 19, 25 Stolle, Dietlind, 52 Study Watch, 62 subsidies: credit markets and, 109, 116, 118, 131n14, 138, 139, 144; historical perspective on, 54, 61, 67; homeownership, 131, 138–139, 197; labor markets and, 182, 185; pay-as-yougo (PAYG) systems and, 18, 67; private markets and, 94, 192; risk and, 1, 4, 11, 17–18, 23, 25, 28, 30, 54, 61, 67, 109, 116, 118, 185, 192, 197, 199; tax, 4, 37, 54, 199 supplementary health insurance, 88–94 Swaan, Abram de, 50–51 Sweden, 11, 38, 66, 90, 102; “Alliance for Sweden” campaign, 184; Bildt and, 11, 177; credit markets and, 107, 147; Democrats, 182–183; Ghent system and, 177, 179–180, 182, 184, 198; Job Pact and, 182; Law on Employment Protection and, 180; Left Party, 182; politics of private markets and, 180; Reinfeldt and, 92, 177; SAP government and, 182–183; unemployment insurance funds (UIFs) and, 180–184; unions and, 182 Swedish Confederation of Professional Associations (SACO), 179–180, 182 Swedish Confederation of Professional Employees (TCO), 180, 182 symmetric information, 20, 25–29, 39, 55, 82n17 taxes: coercive, 12; credit markets and, 114– 115, 139, 144; credits, 9, 195, 199; deductions, 50, 92, 115, 199; flat-rate, 37, 114–115, 132, 144–146; historical perspective on, 47, 50, 54–56, 60, 63, 66; inequality and, 19, 60, 100, 188–189; labor markets and, 159, 177, 180, 181; mutual aid societies (MASs) and, 47; paying for social protection by, 4, 8, 15, 19, 25, 31, 198–200; pensions and, 19, 31; power to, 54, 191; preference formation and, 35–37; price nondiscrimination and, 39; private markets and, 89, 92, 100; public system and, 9, 15, 19, 25, 31, 37, 39, 54, 60, 195, 200; regulation and, 19, 50, 63, 115, 195, 199; subsidies and, 4, 37, 54, 199; transfers and, 8, 114–115, 144, 188–191, 200; voters and, 25, 31, 188–191 time-inconsistency: adverse selection and, 30, 34; asymmetric information and, 56, 190, 199; elderly and, 7, 16–18, 30–35, 47, 56, 89, 96, 193; historical perspective on, 45, 47–48, 54, 56; intergenerational bargains and, 47, 191, 193; market feasibility and, 16–18, 30–35; mutual aid societies (MASs) and, 6–7, 16, 45, 47–48, 54, 56, 199; overlapping generations models and, 32; pay-as-you-go (PAYG) systems and, 16, 31–35, 47, 56, 96, 191, 193; persistence of, 7; private markets and, 71, 89, 96–99; redistribution and, 30; risk and, 7, 30–35, 45, 47, 54, 56, 89, 96, 191, 199; theoretical model and, 30– 35; voters and, 32, 191, 193, 199; younger generation and, 6–7, 16–18, 30–35, 47–48, 56, 96, 190, 194 top-up plans, 9, 36, 89, 179–182, 195 trackers, 3–4, 29, 76, 79–81, 100, 191 transfers: credit markets and, 109, 114–115, 144; democracy and, 16, 30, 67, 190; funded systems and, 7, 16, 47, 64, 96; intergenerational, 6–7, 13, 55, 56, 190; mutual aid societies (MASs), 6, 48, 57– 58; pay-as-you-go (PAYG) systems, 16, 47, 55, 191; poor people and, 7–8, 55, 115, 200; poverty and, 13; private markets and, 80n15, 81, 96; redistribution and, 16, 30, 64, 109, 144, 188–189, 200; taxes and, 8, 114–115, 144, 188–191, 200; theoretical model and, 16, 20, 30, 47–48, 55, 56–57, 64–65, 67; younger generation and, 6–7, 13, 16, 30, 47–48, 56, 67, 96, 190 uncertainty: democracy and, 8; incomplete information and, 8, 66–67; industrialization and, 189; labor markets and, 160, 163n2; preferences and, 16, 26, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009151405.009 Published online by Cambridge University Press Index 66, 199; private markets and, 101; public system and, 8, 15–16, 30, 61, 67; risk and, 8, 13, 16, 26, 30, 36, 56, 61, 66–67, 160, 163, 191, 196, 199; solidarity and, 66, 160, 196; voters and, 31, 61, 101, 163, 199; welfare and, 8, 13, 36, 56, 189, 191 underwriting: actuarial science and, 49; artificial intelligence (AI) and, 81–82; COVID-19 pandemic and, 74, 77; current practices of, 73–76; Department of Motor Vehicles and, 75; diagnostics and, 10, 27, 49, 62, 81, 83–88, 94, 100, 193; digitalization and, 76–79; electronic health records (EHRs) and, 76–79; health insurance and, 17, 92– 94, 100; innovations in, 76–82; laboratories and, 81, 83, 87; Lexis Nexis Risk Classifier and, 76; life insurance and, 71, 73–82, 87–88, 100–101; Medical Information Bureau (MIB) and, 72n4, 75, 78–79; mortgages, 120–121, 207–208; prescription databases and, 75, 77; trackers and, 3–4, 29, 76, 79–81, 100, 191; unemployment insurance funds (UIFs) and, 180 unemployment: benefits during, 14, 65, 109, 131–133, 136n24, 137–138, 169–172, 173, 182–184, 185, 198, 200; credit markets and, 108–109, 131–138; disability and, 44, 139, 197; education and, 11, 60, 66, 159, 161–162, 165, 174, 179, 183–184, 192, 197n3, 198; Germany and, 14, 65, 165, 168–173, 185–186, 198; high levels of, 180, 182, 184; historical perspective on, 44, 46, 51, 55, 60, 65–67; homeownership and, 134– 137; information and, 8–14; insurance for, 4, 11, 14, 34, 35, 46, 55, 65–67, 159– 160, 163, 165, 177–184, 192, 198; lost income and, 109, 188; occupational unemployment rates (OURs), 174n0; private markets and, 4; reform and, 14, 29, 65, 67, 131–137, 165, 177–182, 198; risk and, 5, 8–11, 13–14, 18, 20, 26, 29, 35, 44, 46, 51, 60, 65–67, 108–109, 131– 132, 136–138, 159–166, 169, 171–174, 177–180, 183–184, 188, 191–192, 197– 198; theoretical model and, 16, 18, 20, 25, 26n10, 29–30, 35; United States and, 198 231 unemployment insurance funds (UIFs), 11, 14, 66, 177–184, 192, 198–199 unemployment protection, 46, 159, 164, 197n3 unions: fall of, 12, 188; historical perspective on, 58, 66; Job Pact and, 182; labor markets and, 159, 161, 164, 174, 177–184, 200; rise of, 12; Sweden and, 182; unemployment insurance funds (UIFs) and, 11, 14, 66, 177–184, 192, 198–199 UnitedHealth, 80 United Kingdom, 80, 90, 93, 147 United States: 401(k) plans, 33, 64; Bush and, 17; Clinton and, 116; credit markets and, 106–107, 109, 117, 121, 124, 131, 139–140; employer-based coverage, 58; Fair Housing Act and, 12; Fannie Mae, 65, 109, 116–117, 121; financial crisis of, 14; fraternal societies and, 47, 52; Freddie Mac, 65, 109, 116–117, 119–130, 140n25, 197; Great Depression, 30, 46, 117, 189; guaranty associations and, 33; healthcare costs in, 29n13, 62; health savings accounts (HSAs), 17, 195; individual retirement accounts (IRAs), 193; information revolution and, 58–60; labor markets and, 66; Medicaid, 8, 10, 60, 68, 96–99, 133; Medicare, 2, 7, 9, 17, 59–60, 96–99, 193; mutual aid societies (MASs) and, 44, 46, 49, 55; Obama and, 76, 81, 90; private markets and, 8, 18, 44, 51, 70, 74, 77–84, 89n23, 90, 91–99, 102–103, 195; Republican Party and, 94; self-insurance and, 11; Social Security, 47, 67; as stingy welfare state, 197; unemployment and, 198 universal public system, 18, 30, 91 University of Edinburgh, 45 urbanization, 6, 30, 51, 189 US Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), 38, 63, 93, 94 Verily Life Sciences, 62, 81 Vitality Health, 79–80 voluntary private health insurance (VPHI), 63, 89–93 voters: Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES), 176; labor markets and, 163–164, 184; median, 25, 32, 64; https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009151405.009 Published online by Cambridge University Press 232 Index middle-class, 1; pay-as-you-go (PAYG) systems and, 193; private markets and, 101; reform and, 18, 29; risk and, 18, 25, 29, 61, 64, 163, 184, 188–191, 197n3, 199; self-interested, 29; taxes and, 25, 31, 188–191; time inconsistency and, 32, 191, 193, 199; uncertainty and, 31, 61, 101, 163, 199 wage protection, 159 Wallace, Robert, 45 wealth: credit markets and, 108, 110, 111n2, 133, 140; discretionary income and, 100, 105, 108–115, 118, 138, 140, 142, 196; historical perspective on, 56; mobility and, 49, 66, 68, 189, 191–192, 200; private markets and, 70, 97, 100; public system and, 15; savings and, 1, 7–8, 17, 20–21, 29, 33–36, 46–47, 51, 66, 96– 97, 114–117, 133, 136, 141, 160, 180, 190, 193; self-insurance and, 11–12, 20–22, 50n2, 51, 57, 60, 67, 73, 93, 190, 192 Webster, Alexander, 45 welfare: Bismarckian, 52–53, 58, 67, 191, 199–201; credit markets and, 105, 108– 115, 131–138, 140; democracy and, 8; destitution and, 45, 67; discretionary income and, 110–111; elderly and, 4, 7–8, 13–14, 18, 33, 53–54, 58, 105, 188, 193, 199; Golden Age of, 54; historical perspective on, 44–58, 68–69; homeownership and, 131–138; information and, 2–14; loans and, 110–111, 113–115, 131–138; middle class and, 6, 8, 13, 15, 54, 68–69, 193– 195, 199; mutual aid societies (MASs) and, 6, 8, 10, 12–13, 15–16, 25, 48, 51– 52, 54, 56; partisanship and, 12; pay-asyou-go (PAYG) systems and, 16, 18, 33, 48, 53, 193; preferences and, 2, 9, 12, 18, 21, 30, 37, 39, 68, 203; private markets and, 19, 37–38, 70; public system and, 19; redistribution and, 6, 12, 16, 18, 21, 36, 38, 53, 56, 58, 68, 115, 188, 191, 197, 203; regulation and, 37–38; risk and, 2, 6–30, 33, 36–39, 48, 51–58, 68–69, 105, 108–109, 115, 138, 140, 188, 191, 193, 197, 201, 203; role of, 188; segmentation and, 8, 18, 52–53, 188; solidarity and, 8, 18, 40n21, 201, 203; theoretical model and, 15–25, 30–33, 36–40; uncertainty and, 8, 13, 36, 56, 189, 191 Westcott, Edward Noyes, 108 Wiedemann, Andreas, 109 Wienk, Ron, 116n7 Willen, Paul, 120–121 World Health Organization (WHO), 86, 93 World War II era, 4, 30, 36, 51, 189 younger generation: deductibles and, 17; health and, 4, 6–7, 13, 17–18, 30–31, 48, 56, 67, 86, 92, 96, 101, 193–195; health savings plans and, 7, 17, 33, 96; market feasibility and, 16–18, 30–35; pay-asyou-go (PAYG) systems and, 16, 18, 31, 33, 47–48, 56, 64, 67, 96, 193; private markets and, 84–86, 92, 96–97, 101; redistribution and, 16, 30, 64; support of elderly by, 4; time-inconsistency and, 6–7, 16–18, 30–35, 47–48, 56, 96, 190, 193; transfers and, 6–7, 13, 16, 30, 47–48, 56, 67, 96, 190 https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009151405.009 Published online by Cambridge University Press CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE POLITICS Other Books in the Series (continued from page ii) Laia Balcells, Rivalry and Revenge: The Politics of Violence during Civil War Lisa Baldez, Why Women Protest?

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(r) 17.15 BW bias (l) 28.13 BW bias (r) 28.13 (2) Ignored 1.228*** (0.102) [1.103; 1.525] mserd Triangular 1 2 5,025 2,147 2,878 180 200 9.56 9.56 22.32 22.32 Note: Standard errors in parentheses (clustered at the FICO-2d level) * p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, and ***p < 0.001 Model 1: Estimates adjusted for mass points in the running variable Model 2: Estimates not adjusted for mass points in the running variable Published online by Cambridge University Press 6 Labor Market Risks The focus in this chapter is on insurance against labor market risks. Such insurance comes in a variety of forms (Estevez-Abé, Iversen, and Soskice 2001): (i) employment protection, (ii) wage protection for workers with different skills and at different tenure levels, and (iii) unemployment protection. In CMEs, the first two are shaped by collective bargaining between employers’ associations, on the one hand, and unions and professional associations (with the state in a supporting role), on the other, while in liberal market economies (LMEs), they are left mostly to the market. In LMEs, instead, the main protection against risks is through the acquisition of general skills that are portable across jobs.

The Sharing Economy: The End of Employment and the Rise of Crowd-Based Capitalism by Arun Sundararajan

"World Economic Forum" Davos, additive manufacturing, Airbnb, AltaVista, Amazon Mechanical Turk, asset light, autonomous vehicles, barriers to entry, basic income, benefit corporation, bike sharing, bitcoin, blockchain, book value, Burning Man, call centre, Carl Icahn, collaborative consumption, collaborative economy, collective bargaining, commoditize, commons-based peer production, corporate social responsibility, cryptocurrency, data science, David Graeber, distributed ledger, driverless car, Eben Moglen, employer provided health coverage, Erik Brynjolfsson, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, Frank Levy and Richard Murnane: The New Division of Labor, future of work, general purpose technology, George Akerlof, gig economy, housing crisis, Howard Rheingold, independent contractor, information asymmetry, Internet of things, inventory management, invisible hand, job automation, job-hopping, John Zimmer (Lyft cofounder), Kickstarter, knowledge worker, Kula ring, Lyft, Marc Andreessen, Mary Meeker, megacity, minimum wage unemployment, moral hazard, moral panic, Network effects, new economy, Oculus Rift, off-the-grid, pattern recognition, peer-to-peer, peer-to-peer lending, peer-to-peer model, peer-to-peer rental, profit motive, public intellectual, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, recommendation engine, regulatory arbitrage, rent control, Richard Florida, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Gordon, Ronald Coase, Ross Ulbricht, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, smart contracts, Snapchat, social software, supply-chain management, TaskRabbit, TED Talk, the long tail, The Nature of the Firm, total factor productivity, transaction costs, transportation-network company, two-sided market, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, universal basic income, Vitalik Buterin, WeWork, Yochai Benkler, Zipcar

The Supreme Court draws its multi-factor test from Nationwide Mutual Ins. Co. v. Darden, 503 U.S. 318 (1992). Third, the true underlying issue isn’t really about a desire among workers for full-time employment, but rather about a desire to obtain the benefits currently and exclusively associated with that status. As Fox notes, since the 1944 ruling—which for collective bargaining purposes categorized the newsboys as employees—workers classified as employees “now enjoy a wide variety of federal, state and local protections, from minimum-wage and overtime laws to unemployment insurance, that aren’t available to independent contractors.”3 This is an important distinction for a number of reasons, most saliently because the specter of future litigation may actually be preventing workers from getting benefits funded by the platforms.

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Although full-time employees can pool their individual bargaining power and take collective action, protected by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the NLRA does not protect independent contractors, and current antitrust law may penalize them for doing so, a point Elizabeth Kennedy highlights using the example of independent physicians in her 2005 paper on collective bargaining for dependent contractors.6 Further, as Ai-Jen Poo, a 2015 MacArthur Foundation Fellow, has highlighted for decades, the labor laws governing domestic workers are unfairly biased against workers relative to labor laws that cover other professions.7 Fifth, the current constraints of labor law will not allow a market-based solution to easily emerge.

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The ambiguity, the paradox, of their position is thus reflected in the term used to identify them.11 Early discussions of a “third way” for worker classification in the sharing economy came from Wilma Liebman, the chair of the United States NLRB in the first Obama administration,12 and from Denise Cheng of MIT in her 2015 Roosevelt Institute policy paper.13 The more detailed Brookings Institute “independent worker” proposal from Harris and Krueger in December 2015 highlights a number of legal reforms that would need to accompany such a definition. Salient among them are the need to alter antitrust law to allow independent workers to collectively bargain (as I discussed earlier); the need to make entities that use labor provided from independent workers exempt from offering minimum wage, overtime, and other hours-of-work-based worker protections; the need to allow platforms to provide workers-compensation insurance without triggering employee categorization; and the need to allow non-employer platforms (or what they call “intermediaries”) to withhold taxes.

The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class by Guy Standing

8-hour work day, banking crisis, barriers to entry, basic income, behavioural economics, Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness, bread and circuses, call centre, Cass Sunstein, centre right, collective bargaining, company town, corporate governance, crony capitalism, death from overwork, deindustrialization, deskilling, emotional labour, export processing zone, fear of failure, full employment, Herbert Marcuse, hiring and firing, Honoré de Balzac, housing crisis, illegal immigration, immigration reform, income inequality, independent contractor, information security, it's over 9,000, job polarisation, karōshi / gwarosa / guolaosi, labour market flexibility, labour mobility, land reform, libertarian paternalism, low skilled workers, lump of labour, marginal employment, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, means of production, mini-job, moral hazard, Naomi Klein, nudge unit, old age dependency ratio, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, pension time bomb, pensions crisis, placebo effect, post-industrial society, precariat, presumed consent, quantitative easing, remote working, rent-seeking, Richard Thaler, rising living standards, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, science of happiness, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, technological determinism, The Market for Lemons, The Nature of the Firm, The Spirit Level, Tobin tax, transaction costs, universal basic income, unpaid internship, winner-take-all economy, working poor, working-age population, young professional

How can people construct a career and build an occupational profile when they can be moved at short notice or when the next rungs on an occupational ladder are suddenly outsourced? A related trend is the spread of individual contracts, as part of the ‘contractualisation’ of life. In industrial society, the norm was a collective contract, set by collective bargaining, perhaps extended to other firms in a sector. But as unions and collective bargaining have shrunk, individualised contracts have grown. For a brief time, fewer workers were covered by any contracts, but the trend to individual contracts is strengthening. They allow firms to provide different treatments, degrees of security and status, so as to channel some workers into the salariat, some into stable jobs, some into a precariat status, increasing divisions and hierarchies.

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In Italy, the precariat was enlarged by the Treu law of 1997, which introduced temporary contracts, and by the 2003 Biagi law, which allowed private recruitment agencies. One country after another has acknowledged the pressure of globalisation in extending temporary labour. It has accompanied what goes under the clumsy term of ‘triangulation’. Labour law and collective bargaining were constructed on the basis of direct relationships between employers and employees. But who is responsible when a third party becomes an intermediary? Who is in control, the final employer or the intermediary? The blurring of boundaries of decision-making and responsibility adds to the precariousness.

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Work rights should include rules on acceptable practice between workers and within occupational communities as well as between ‘labour’ and ‘capital’. The precariat is at a disadvantage in these respects; a regime of ‘collaborative bargaining’ to give it Voice is required to complement regimes of collective bargaining between representatives of employers and employees, an issue to which we will return. The precariat should also demand construction of an international workrights regime, beginning with an overhaul of the International Labour Organisation, a bastion of labourism. How this could be done is dealt with elsewhere (Standing, 2010).

The Story of Work: A New History of Humankind by Jan Lucassen

3D printing, 8-hour work day, affirmative action, agricultural Revolution, Albert Einstein, anti-work, antiwork, Asian financial crisis, banking crisis, basic income, Berlin Wall, Black Lives Matter, blue-collar work, bread and circuses, Bretton Woods, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Charles Babbage, collective bargaining, Columbian Exchange, commoditize, computer age, coronavirus, COVID-19, demographic transition, deskilling, discovery of the americas, domestication of the camel, Easter island, European colonialism, factory automation, Fall of the Berlin Wall, fixed income, Ford Model T, founder crops, Frederick Winslow Taylor, full employment, future of work, Great Leap Forward, hiring and firing, income inequality, income per capita, informal economy, invisible hand, James Watt: steam engine, joint-stock company, knowledge economy, labour mobility, land tenure, long peace, mass immigration, means of production, megastructure, minimum wage unemployment, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, new economy, New Urbanism, out of africa, pension reform, phenotype, post-work, precariat, price stability, public intellectual, reshoring, scientific management, Scramble for Africa, Second Machine Age, stakhanovite, tacit knowledge, Thales of Miletus, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, two and twenty, universal basic income, W. E. B. Du Bois, women in the workforce, working poor

This could be in the form of the missionary zeal of communist, socialist, Christian, national, international and supranational organizations (like the socialist and communist internationals discussed below), but also of religiously inspired movements; think of the Catholic Church and the papal encyclical Quadragesimo Anno (1931) and its predecessor. Trade unions utilize various strategies and apply many tactics to achieve their goals, but at the centre is the collective bargaining of wages and work conditions, aimed at collective labour agreements. This requires considerable diplomacy, but in the knowledge that they have recourse to the ultimate bargaining lever – the threat of strike. If applied, this threat is the ultimate test of the union’s ability to impose its will on the employer or employers, but notably also to control its workers.

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Indeed, the closed shop was particularly popular and successful among the skilled crafts in nineteenth-century Europe and, more recently, in England. The unification of workers, of course, provoked the unification of their counterparts, employers. Conventionally competitors, under the pressure of collective action and a united workforce they now attempted collective bargaining as a strategy and, in addition, put pressure on local or national governments to choose a side. Broadly speaking, for a long time, politicians and employers belonged to the same social class, with the latter having a much bigger chance of enforcing their conditions than their workers. Among their strategies was the organization of factory- or firm-based trade unions, meant to compete with unions controlled by the workers independently.

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Even more extreme was the imposition of yellow-dog contracts, particularly widespread in the US in the interwar years before new arrangements under the New Deal saw the blossoming of trade unions in subsequent decades. The polar opposite of closed shop arrangements, the yellow-dog contract is ‘a promise, made by workers as a condition of employment, not to belong to a union during the period of employment, or not to engage in certain specified activities, such as collective bargaining or striking, without which the formal right to belong to a union is wholly valueless’.87 In post-war Japan and Korea, too, fierce battles between trade unions and employers who established competing top-down unions are not uncommon. Several trade unionists in the Korean shipbuilding industry even committed suicide in a final attempt to save their independent unions and to win disputes.

Trust: The Social Virtue and the Creation of Prosperity by Francis Fukuyama

Alvin Toffler, barriers to entry, Berlin Wall, blue-collar work, business climate, business cycle, capital controls, classic study, collective bargaining, corporate governance, corporate raider, creative destruction, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, deskilling, double entry bookkeeping, equal pay for equal work, European colonialism, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Frederick Winslow Taylor, full employment, George Gilder, glass ceiling, Glass-Steagall Act, global village, Gunnar Myrdal, hiring and firing, industrial robot, Jane Jacobs, job satisfaction, joint-stock company, joint-stock limited liability company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kanban, Kenneth Arrow, land reform, liberal capitalism, liberation theology, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, mittelstand, price mechanism, profit maximization, RAND corporation, rent-seeking, Ronald Coase, scientific management, Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Nature of the Firm, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, transaction costs, transfer pricing, traveling salesman, union organizing, vertical integration, W. E. B. Du Bois

These include the Federal Association of German Employers, the Federal Association of German Industry, and various other groups connected with specific industrial sectors.13 These trade associations do not have ready counterparts outside Central Europe. Their activities and responsibilities are far broader than those of political lobbying associations like the American Chamber of Commerce or the National Association of Manufacturers. The German Verbände act as the counterparts of the trade unions during collective bargaining negotiations, by which wages, benefits, and work conditions are set on an industry-wide basis; they are actively involved in setting standards for training and product quality; and they engage in long-range planning for the strategic future of particular industrial sectors. The trade associations played a key role in initiating negotiations leading to the Investment Aid Act of 1952, for example, by which the relatively well-off sectors of German industry were taxed in order to subsidize certain bottleneck sectors like coal, steel, electricity, and railways.14 The third set of communitarian economic institutions consists of the complex of labor-management relations that were codified as part of Ludwig Erhardt’s postwar Sozialmarktwirtschaft, or social market economy.

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It was Bismarck, after all, who implemented Europe’s first social security system in the 1880s (albeit as the counterpart to his antisocialist legislation that included a ban on the SPD).16 The Sozialmarktwirtschaft actually had its origins in the Weimar period in the 1920s, when various forms of labor legislation, including the right of free collective bargaining and workers’ councils, were introduced.17 After the tumultuous 1930s and 1940s, when the Nazis banned independent trade unions and set up their own “yellow” corporatist organizations, postwar German leaders shared a broad consensus that a new, more cooperative system needed to be established.

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Major elements of the Sozialmarktwirtschaft were Mitbestimmung, or codetermination, a system under which labor representatives sat on boards of the companies they worked for, with access to corporate information and a real, if limited, participation in governance; a network of workers’ councils for managing problems and conflicts on an enterprise level; the system of collective bargaining between the industry associations and the labor unions, by which wages, hours, benefits, and the like are set on a sector- or industry-wide basis;18 and finally, the extensive social welfare legislation that stipulates health benefits, working conditions, hours, job security, and the like.

The Coke Machine: The Dirty Truth Behind the World's Favorite Soft Drink by Michael Blanding

"World Economic Forum" Davos, An Inconvenient Truth, carbon footprint, classic study, clean water, collective bargaining, corporate social responsibility, Exxon Valdez, Gordon Gekko, Internet Archive, laissez-faire capitalism, market design, military-industrial complex, MITM: man-in-the-middle, Naomi Klein, Nelson Mandela, New Journalism, Pepsi Challenge, Ponzi scheme, profit motive, Ralph Nader, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, shareholder value, stock buybacks, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, union organizing, Upton Sinclair, Wayback Machine

On November 18, 1996, the union submitted its final proposal for a new contract, demanding increased pay and bene­ fits, along with protection from firing and new security measures to keep union leadership safe from violence. The Coke plant’s local managers and its Florida-based owners had until December 5 to respond to the collective bargaining proposal. As he stood at the gate that morning, Gil was mentally preparing for the meeting that day, not knowing it would never take place. As he opened the gate to let out the delivery truck, he stepped back behind the gatehouse. The truck rumbled past, its bright red Coke logo shining in the morning light.

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In 2002, González’s daughter, then “SYRUP IN THE VEINS” 197 twelve, answered the phone to a voice telling her that her “son-of-a-bitch terrorist father” had to give them 20 million pesos ($10,000) or they would kill his daughter. His wife left soon afterward. “She would say, ‘You ruined my life, my family, my daughters.’” González halts again, choking back tears. “Everyone starts to distrust you, even the neighbors.” As the tears flow, so do the words. “They want to destroy the union and because of that the collective bargaining gets worse, and the conditions for the workers get worse. I’m not a guerrilla member, I’m not a paramilitary member. I just have convictions that the country needs to change.” He suddenly explodes in a sardonic laugh. “You get so fucking pissed off by your helplessness that you want to put a bomb in the place and blow it up.

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Much of the decline has been due to outsourcing of the workforce to contract or temporary workers, he says; from 10,000 full-time workers in 1993, the company now employs only 2,000. Most of the other workers are so-called cooperative workers who are responsible for their own health insurance and other benefits, and of course excluded from collective bargaining. 1 98 THE COKE MACHINE Even the direct workers have seen wages decline from a high of $800 a month to near $500. For nonunionized workers, wages are even worse— only $150 a month. In addition, workers have lost overtime and holiday bonuses. All of the consolidation and downsizing, however, has been tre­ mendously successful for the company; Coca-Cola now controls 60 per­ cent of the nonalcoholic beverages market in the country; with the acquisition of Panamco by Coca-Cola FEMSA in 2003, the country has been one of the new anchor bottlers’ primary growth markets.

The Corruption of Capitalism: Why Rentiers Thrive and Work Does Not Pay by Guy Standing

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, Amazon Mechanical Turk, anti-fragile, Asian financial crisis, asset-backed security, bank run, banking crisis, basic income, Ben Bernanke: helicopter money, Bernie Sanders, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Big Tech, bilateral investment treaty, Bonfire of the Vanities, Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carried interest, cashless society, central bank independence, centre right, Clayton Christensen, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collective bargaining, commons-based peer production, credit crunch, crony capitalism, cross-border payments, crowdsourcing, debt deflation, declining real wages, deindustrialization, disruptive innovation, Doha Development Round, Donald Trump, Double Irish / Dutch Sandwich, ending welfare as we know it, eurozone crisis, Evgeny Morozov, falling living standards, financial deregulation, financial innovation, Firefox, first-past-the-post, future of work, Garrett Hardin, gentrification, gig economy, Goldman Sachs: Vampire Squid, Greenspan put, Growth in a Time of Debt, housing crisis, income inequality, independent contractor, information retrieval, intangible asset, invention of the steam engine, investor state dispute settlement, it's over 9,000, James Watt: steam engine, Jeremy Corbyn, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, labour market flexibility, light touch regulation, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, lump of labour, Lyft, manufacturing employment, Mark Zuckerberg, market clearing, Martin Wolf, means of production, megaproject, mini-job, Money creation, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, mortgage debt, mortgage tax deduction, Neil Kinnock, non-tariff barriers, North Sea oil, Northern Rock, nudge unit, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, open economy, openstreetmap, patent troll, payday loans, peer-to-peer lending, Phillips curve, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, precariat, quantitative easing, remote working, rent control, rent-seeking, ride hailing / ride sharing, Right to Buy, Robert Gordon, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, Sam Altman, savings glut, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Simon Kuznets, SoftBank, sovereign wealth fund, Stephen Hawking, Steve Ballmer, structural adjustment programs, TaskRabbit, The Chicago School, The Future of Employment, the payments system, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, Tragedy of the Commons, Travis Kalanick, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, Y Combinator, zero-sum game, Zipcar

There was no political will to challenge the might of financial capital. At the heart of neo-liberalism is a contradiction. While its proponents profess a belief in free ‘unregulated’ markets, they favour regulations to prevent collective bodies from operating in favour of social solidarity. That is why they want controls over unions, collective bargaining, professional associations and occupational guilds. When the interests of free markets and property clash, they favour the latter. Neo-liberalism is a convenient rationale for rentier capitalism. THE GREAT CONVERGENCE It is impossible to make sense of the Global Transformation without appreciating the role of China.

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Alistair Darling, former Labour Chancellor, admitted as much when he wrote that tax credits ‘support many who will not benefit from the minimum wage’.22 Tax credits are a subsidy to capital, distort labour markets and hold down wages. Research suggests that employers gain a quarter to a third of their value through paying lower wages.23 The unions have erred in supporting them, since they are a poor substitute for collective bargaining and reduce the incentive for low-paid workers to join unions. They are also bad for productivity, since they result in an under-valuation of labour, reducing the pressure on employers to be efficient. They also encourage firms to use low-paid workers rather than higher-wage employees. By definition, tax credits raise the income of those receiving them, thereby helping them out of poverty.

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Where taskers are contractors working primarily for one company and required to comply with its rules and standards, there is a case for calling them employees, as the California appeals court decided in the case of FedEx drivers. But any distinction between contractors and employees will be arbitrary. Instead of trying to shoehorn tasking into the dichotomous classification of contractor or employee, taskers should form a separate category. This is one reason for strengthening taskers’ collective bargaining capacities. Tasker associations should be set up, as separate entities or within occupational bodies. Certainly, the emergence of taskers will intensify friction between groups of workers; there is not and never has been a ‘unified working class’. The divergence of interests is why a ‘collaborative’ bargaining system is needed, for bargaining between complementary or substitute occupational groups, not just between employers and employees.8 On one side are employers, requesters and labour brokers; on the other, employees, taskers and freelancers.

Servant Economy: Where America's Elite Is Sending the Middle Class by Jeff Faux

air traffic controllers' union, Alan Greenspan, back-to-the-land, Bear Stearns, benefit corporation, Bernie Sanders, Black Swan, Bretton Woods, BRICs, British Empire, business cycle, call centre, centre right, classic study, cognitive dissonance, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, crony capitalism, currency manipulation / currency intervention, David Brooks, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, disruptive innovation, falling living standards, financial deregulation, financial innovation, full employment, Glass-Steagall Act, guns versus butter model, high-speed rail, hiring and firing, Howard Zinn, Hyman Minsky, illegal immigration, indoor plumbing, informal economy, invisible hand, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, junk bonds, Kevin Roose, Kickstarter, lake wobegon effect, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, market fundamentalism, Martin Wolf, McMansion, medical malpractice, Michael Milken, military-industrial complex, Minsky moment, mortgage debt, Myron Scholes, Naomi Klein, new economy, oil shock, old-boy network, open immigration, Paul Samuelson, plutocrats, price mechanism, price stability, private military company, public intellectual, radical decentralization, Ralph Nader, reserve currency, rising living standards, Robert Shiller, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, school vouchers, Silicon Valley, single-payer health, Solyndra, South China Sea, statistical model, Steve Jobs, Suez crisis 1956, Thomas L Friedman, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, trade route, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, union organizing, upwardly mobile, urban renewal, War on Poverty, We are the 99%, working poor, Yogi Berra, Yom Kippur War, you are the product

It is the result of the interaction of all the actors in the economic drama—the majority of who are people of ordinary talent, connections, perseverance, and/or luck. All have their part to play as workers and consumers, and therefore all have a claim on the benefits of growth. Economic security—pooling risks through social insurance, subsidizing higher education, and collective bargaining—is as important as the freedom to buy low and sell high. By providing a cushion for ordinary workers, the innovations of full employment, rising wages, unions, and government-sponsored safety nets also provided a protective cushion for the American capitalist class. After all, the implication of Keynes’s proposition was that what is good for General Motors is good for America—even though the businessmen had to also accept its corollary that what is good for the United Auto Workers is good for General Motors.

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Keynesian economics validated the New Deal, which framed the social contract between U.S. capital and labor for approximately fifty years. The leaders of the U.S. labor movement abandoned any dream of creating a socialist future in exchange for business acceptance of social insurance programs and collective bargaining rights. Social Security guaranteed a minimal level of income for the elderly regardless of how they had fared in the market. Workers’ compensation buffered employees from the economic consequences of injury on the job, and unemployment insurance provided a way to ride out cyclical bouts of unemployment.

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In effect, if workers can be fired for striking, then they do not have the right to strike; they simply have the right to quit. Reagan’s act signaled that the government would sanction a return to the pre–New Deal hard-line war against organized labor. Employers responded eagerly by stiffening resistance across the collective bargaining table, daring unions to strike, and creating sophisticated defenses against attempts to unionize. A new industry of consultants arose to run antiunion campaigns, teaching management how to threaten, bribe, and harass workers when union organizers showed up. Many of these tactics were illegal, but Reagan appointed antiunion hard-liners to the National Labor Relations Board, where they blocked, delayed, and denied complaints.

The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition by Jonathan Tepper

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, air freight, Airbnb, airline deregulation, Alan Greenspan, bank run, barriers to entry, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, big-box store, Bob Noyce, Boston Dynamics, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, citizen journalism, Clayton Christensen, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collective bargaining, compensation consultant, computer age, Cornelius Vanderbilt, corporate raider, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, crony capitalism, diversification, don't be evil, Donald Trump, Double Irish / Dutch Sandwich, Dunbar number, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, eurozone crisis, Fairchild Semiconductor, Fall of the Berlin Wall, family office, financial innovation, full employment, gentrification, German hyperinflation, gig economy, Gini coefficient, Goldman Sachs: Vampire Squid, Google bus, Google Chrome, Gordon Gekko, Herbert Marcuse, income inequality, independent contractor, index fund, Innovator's Dilemma, intangible asset, invisible hand, Jeff Bezos, Jeremy Corbyn, Jevons paradox, John Nash: game theory, John von Neumann, Joseph Schumpeter, junk bonds, Kenneth Rogoff, late capitalism, London Interbank Offered Rate, low skilled workers, Mark Zuckerberg, Martin Wolf, Maslow's hierarchy, means of production, merger arbitrage, Metcalfe's law, multi-sided market, mutually assured destruction, Nash equilibrium, Network effects, new economy, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, passive investing, patent troll, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, prediction markets, prisoner's dilemma, proprietary trading, race to the bottom, rent-seeking, road to serfdom, Robert Bork, Ronald Reagan, Sam Peltzman, secular stagnation, shareholder value, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, Skype, Snapchat, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, SoftBank, Steve Jobs, stock buybacks, tech billionaire, The Chicago School, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, too big to fail, undersea cable, Vanguard fund, vertical integration, very high income, wikimedia commons, William Shockley: the traitorous eight, you are the product, zero-sum game

Most people think of companies such as Uber, with an estimated seven million drivers worldwide, when they think of part-time and contracted work. The company is constantly in the headlines, facing a barrage of lawsuits aimed at reclassifying drivers as employees, rather than contractors, and at providing full-time benefits, overtime pay, and collective bargaining. Uber is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to contract work. In many other industries, the trend to seek cheap, no-strings-attached employees also applies. Every day we see workers dressed in bright, colored uniforms with corporate logos; but the people who are valeting cars at a hotel, acting as concierge, and cleaning your room do not work for Hilton, instead they are contracted through a third party.

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With this increased bureaucracy, workers are left to navigate confusing legal processes alone. Unionization has collapsed while occupational licensing has grown exponentially (see Figure 4.9). While unions are imperfect and can, themselves, become powerful barriers to entry for people on the outside, workers have little to no collective bargaining power without them. Figure 4.9 The Great Suppression: Falling Unions and Increasing Licensing, 1950s–Today SOURCE: Taylor Mann, Pine Capital. Workers are now faced with pressure on all sides – governments that require excessive licensing to work, and corporates that require workers accept onerous employment terms.

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Cartels set prices, limited production, and agreed to divide markets.28 Nazis had their reasons for preferring monopolies and cartels. The economist Arthur Schweitzer wrote about the power structure that existed between the Nazi party, large corporations and the generals in 1936. In his book Big Business and the Third Reich he wrote, within a few years of Hitler's accession, “middle-class socialism” had been defeated, collective bargaining had been banned, and unions had been outlawed. Unions were crushed as alternative centers of power. Large companies were favored over small businesses because, as Schweizer noted, “it is easier for the authorities to deal with a number of large companies than with innumerable small ones.”29 Consequently, the Nazi regime favored the process of monopolistic concentration, reinforcing the power of industrial magnates and weakening the position of the middle and working classes.30 The Nazis wanted almost all industries to become cartels.

Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire by Rebecca Henderson

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", Airbnb, asset allocation, behavioural economics, benefit corporation, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, business climate, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon footprint, carbon tax, circular economy, collaborative economy, collective bargaining, commoditize, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, crony capitalism, dark matter, decarbonisation, disruptive innovation, double entry bookkeeping, Elon Musk, Erik Brynjolfsson, export processing zone, Exxon Valdez, Fall of the Berlin Wall, family office, fixed income, George Akerlof, Gini coefficient, global supply chain, greed is good, Greta Thunberg, growth hacking, Hans Rosling, Howard Zinn, Hyman Minsky, impact investing, income inequality, independent contractor, index fund, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), joint-stock company, Kickstarter, Lyft, Marc Benioff, Mark Zuckerberg, Max Levchin, means of production, meta-analysis, microcredit, middle-income trap, Minsky moment, mittelstand, Mont Pelerin Society, Neil Armstrong, Nelson Mandela, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Paris climate accords, passive investing, Paul Samuelson, Philip Mirowski, plant based meat, profit maximization, race to the bottom, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, Salesforce, scientific management, Second Machine Age, shareholder value, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Snapchat, sovereign wealth fund, Steven Pinker, stocks for the long run, Tim Cook: Apple, total factor productivity, Toyota Production System, uber lyft, urban planning, Washington Consensus, WeWork, working-age population, Zipcar

Stinnes had vast holdings in coal, iron, steel, shipping, newspapers, and banks; one analyst described him as the Warren Buffett of his time.62 Together with a number of other private sector leaders, he approached moderate union leaders with proposals for a new economic order. In November 1918, the two groups signed the Stinnes-Legien Agreement, which established the eight-hour workday, the recognition of labor unions, a right to establish works councils, and the adoption of sectoral collective bargaining.63 Stinnes also laid the foundation for a national system of employer representation. Talks between the major firms began in 1918 and were concluded in 1919 when employer representation was unified under the Reich Association of German Industry (RdI). The RdI was organized along industry rather than regional lines, a structure that tended to favor big business interests, and the new association allowed Stinnes and his allies to expand the influence of the Stinnes-Legien Agreement across a broad swath of additional firms.64 Between 1933 and 1945, fascism, economic and political turmoil, and the disaster of World War II led to the breakdown of these agreements as the Nazis dissolved both employers’ associations and unions.

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The Federation of German industries (BDI) emerged as the largest employer association, focusing largely on economic advocacy, while the Federation of German Employers’ Association (BDA) was formed to manage labor relations. The Confederation of German Trade Unions (DGB) was founded as an umbrella organization to represent the trade unions. The three organizations worked together to revive the tradition of employer-labor relations and collective bargaining that had been established between the wars. All three organizations exist today.66 One of the most critical tasks of postwar reconstruction was the revival and standardization of the apprenticeship system. Prior to World War II, the system had not been standardized by either sector or region.

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The DA was able to negotiate an end to the strike, and in 1898 the Danish Confederation of Trade Unions, or the LO, was founded with the active assistance and support of the DA. Two years later a massive three-month labor conflict known as the “Great Lockout” erupted in the steel industry. Together the DA and LO were able to negotiate a “September Compromise,” which established a national system of collective bargaining. In 1907 the state gave the DA the power to intervene in sectoral disputes, reinforcing the DA’s role as the top employers’ association and giving the association a central role in negotiating business labor relations. Over the next fifty years cooperation between labor, business, and government became increasingly routinized—so much so that by the 1960s Danish conservatives were bragging that they were responsible for a “decisive step in the expansion of the welfare state.”

Ours to Hack and to Own: The Rise of Platform Cooperativism, a New Vision for the Future of Work and a Fairer Internet by Trebor Scholz, Nathan Schneider

1960s counterculture, activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, Airbnb, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Anthropocene, barriers to entry, basic income, benefit corporation, Big Tech, bitcoin, blockchain, Build a better mousetrap, Burning Man, business logic, capital controls, circular economy, citizen journalism, collaborative economy, collaborative editing, collective bargaining, commoditize, commons-based peer production, conceptual framework, content marketing, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, data science, Debian, decentralized internet, deskilling, disintermediation, distributed ledger, driverless car, emotional labour, end-to-end encryption, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, food desert, future of work, gig economy, Google bus, hiring and firing, holacracy, income inequality, independent contractor, information asymmetry, Internet of things, Jacob Appelbaum, Jeff Bezos, job automation, Julian Assange, Kickstarter, lake wobegon effect, low skilled workers, Lyft, Mark Zuckerberg, means of production, minimum viable product, moral hazard, Network effects, new economy, offshore financial centre, openstreetmap, peer-to-peer, planned obsolescence, post-work, profit maximization, race to the bottom, radical decentralization, remunicipalization, ride hailing / ride sharing, Rochdale Principles, SETI@home, shareholder value, sharing economy, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, smart cities, smart contracts, Snapchat, surveillance capitalism, TaskRabbit, technological solutionism, technoutopianism, transaction costs, Travis Kalanick, Tyler Cowen, Uber for X, uber lyft, union organizing, universal basic income, Vitalik Buterin, W. E. B. Du Bois, Whole Earth Catalog, WikiLeaks, women in the workforce, workplace surveillance , Yochai Benkler, Zipcar

As the members say in their founding mission statement, their goals are “high-quality, convenient health care on-demand, to grow the LVN profession as well as employment opportunities for highly-trained LVNs, and to increase access to care.” By monopolizing the labor supply in a particular narrow market, organized labor can use the union worker cooperative model to enable workers to own their own labor and enjoy portable benefits, thanks to a collective bargaining agreement between the cooperative and the union. The cooperative guild can start on a manageable level by restricting the co-op work to one classification (like the LVN), but it can later scale to include multiple job classifications. What both of these paths signify is the potential for value when organized labor and worker cooperatives team up in the “gig economy.”

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This represents a remarkable example of how solidarity-centric business structures can combine with determined union policy advocacy and market-available technology to produce more holistic business models. Green Taxi Cooperative has more than eight hundred worker-owners, who are also CWA members, with a newly signed collective bargaining agreement. Before this, CWA Local 7777 had assisted another local taxi cooperative, the two-hundred-driver Union Taxi, which is presently not unionized, and the union learned a lot from that process during round two. Green Taxi is joining other taxi drivers in New York City and elsewhere who are launching apps to step up the competition with Uber, allowing customers to hail a cab and pay for it with their devices of choice.

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By controlling their digital ecosystems, they can turn everything into a productive asset, and every transaction can become an auction where they set the bidding and pricing rules. Platforms are also increasingly transforming the labor market. Uber, for instance, does not own cars and doesn’t employ drivers; it regards its workers as independent contractors. In this way, the company externalizes most costs to workers, eliminating collective bargaining and implementing intrusive data-driven mechanisms of reputation and rankings to reduce transaction costs (for the company). The growth of the sharing economy has so far come with an increasing precarization of labor, and erosion of job security, social protection, and safety nets for workers, such as benefits related to healthcare, pensions, parenting, and so on.

The Captured Economy: How the Powerful Enrich Themselves, Slow Down Growth, and Increase Inequality by Brink Lindsey

Airbnb, Asian financial crisis, bank run, barriers to entry, Bernie Sanders, Build a better mousetrap, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon tax, Carmen Reinhart, Cass Sunstein, collective bargaining, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, crony capitalism, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, David Brooks, diversified portfolio, Donald Trump, Edward Glaeser, endogenous growth, experimental economics, experimental subject, facts on the ground, financial engineering, financial innovation, financial intermediation, financial repression, hiring and firing, Home mortgage interest deduction, housing crisis, income inequality, informal economy, information asymmetry, intangible asset, inventory management, invisible hand, Jones Act, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, Kevin Kelly, knowledge worker, labor-force participation, Long Term Capital Management, low skilled workers, Lyft, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, mass immigration, mass incarceration, medical malpractice, Menlo Park, moral hazard, mortgage debt, Network effects, patent troll, plutocrats, principal–agent problem, regulatory arbitrage, rent control, rent-seeking, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Metcalfe, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, smart cities, software patent, subscription business, tail risk, tech bro, too big to fail, total factor productivity, trade liberalization, tragedy of the anticommons, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, tulip mania, Tyler Cowen, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, Washington Consensus, white picket fence, winner-take-all economy, women in the workforce

But although the rich and the powerful are often the same group of people, they don’t have to be. Accordingly, regulation can redistribute downward as well as upward. The minimum wage, for instance, creates rents in the form of above-market wages for workers at the bottom of the pay scale. Likewise, collective bargaining under the Wagner Act confers a wage premium of roughly 15 percent for unionized workers. Overtime regulations, the Davis-Bacon Act mandating the payment of prevailing wages on public works projects, universal service requirements for telephone service and public utilities, rent control and tenant protection laws, and the Americans with Disabilities Act provide further examples of regulatory policies that create rents for the less-well-off.

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See “cultural capture”; regulatory capture CBO (Congressional Budget Office), 162, 166 Center for Economic and Policy Research, 12 chain stores. See national chains “Chicago Plan”, 58 Clinton, Hillary, 145 Clinton administration, 44 Cochrane, John, 58 Code of Federal Regulations, 23 collective bargaining. See unionization competition, 5, 6, 13, 16, 31, 185n11 concentration of industry and, 20–21 occupational licensing and, 95–99 post-New Deal, 29 preventing inequality through, 8 regulation and, 7, 17 computers. See digital era/information technology concentrated interests, 129–33 concentration/consolidation of industry, 20–21, 185n8 Congressional Budget Office, 162, 166 Congressional Research Service, 161 Congressional staff system, 161–64 conservatism.

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., 14, 36, 161 Temin, Peter, 11 temporary monopolies, 16, 73 TFP. See total factor productivity “third party support”, 155 Thomas, Diana, 186n14 “Tobin’s Q”, 19–20, 22–23 total factor productivity, 24–27, 78–79 “Treaty of Detroit”, 11 Trump, Donald, 2–4, 8 tulip mania, 46 unionization, 6, 11, 31, 146, 157 collective bargaining and, 28 decline of, 91–92 post-New Deal, 29 upstream innovation, 74 upward mobility, 1, 30, 97–98, 143 upward redistribution, 12–14, 28–31, 127. See also redistribution of wealth homeownership and, 121–22 land-use and, 110 mortgage lending and, 39 urban areas, 114–15 VA. See Veterans Administration Vergara v.

Pity the Billionaire: The Unexpected Resurgence of the American Right by Thomas Frank

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alan Greenspan, bank run, Bear Stearns, big-box store, bonus culture, business cycle, carbon tax, classic study, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, commoditize, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, crony capitalism, Deng Xiaoping, false flag, financial innovation, General Magic , Glass-Steagall Act, housing crisis, invisible hand, junk bonds, Kickstarter, low interest rates, money market fund, Naomi Klein, obamacare, Overton Window, payday loans, profit maximization, profit motive, road to serfdom, Robert Bork, Ronald Reagan, shareholder value, strikebreaker, The Chicago School, The Myth of the Rational Market, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, union organizing, Washington Consensus, white flight, Works Progress Administration

People had moaned as far back as the 1840s that allowing labor unions to exist would destroy capitalism, the author recalled, and sure enough, the form of capitalism they had in those days died, to be replaced by “capitalism modified by the right of collective bargaining.” The end-time fears returned, according to Seldes, when the federal government threatened to begin regulating railroads in the 1880s, and again the end of the world came to pass. Capitalism died, to be replaced this time by “capitalism modified by collective bargaining and Federal regulation.”16 Life went on. Today, as in Gilbert Seldes’s time, the fear that true capitalism is about to perish is with us again. Now, as then, only absolutes seem to matter.

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Millions of Americans, and a large number of their banks, became insolvent in a matter of weeks. Sixteen trillion dollars in household wealth was incinerated on the pyre Wall Street had kindled. And yet, as I write this, the most effective political response to these events is a campaign to roll back regulation, to strip government employees of the right to collectively bargain, and to clamp down on federal spending. So let us give the rebels their due. Let us acknowledge that the conservative comeback of the last few years is indeed something unique in the history of American social movements: a mass conversion to free-market theory as a response to hard times.

A Failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of '08 and the Descent Into Depression by Richard A. Posner

Alan Greenspan, Andrei Shleifer, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, Bernie Madoff, business cycle, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, compensation consultant, corporate governance, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, debt deflation, diversified portfolio, equity premium, financial deregulation, financial intermediation, Glass-Steagall Act, Home mortgage interest deduction, illegal immigration, laissez-faire capitalism, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, market bubble, Money creation, money market fund, moral hazard, mortgage debt, Myron Scholes, oil shock, Ponzi scheme, price stability, profit maximization, proprietary trading, race to the bottom, reserve currency, risk tolerance, risk/return, Robert Shiller, savings glut, shareholder value, short selling, statistical model, subprime mortgage crisis, too big to fail, transaction costs, very high income

Assuming, therefore, that the companies would be economically viable at a reduced level of production and are broke only because they are crushed by debts contracted when their output was much greater, reorganization in bankruptcy would be the sensible solution to their financial problems. The bankruptcy court could also abrogate the collective bargaining contracts between the automakers and the United Auto Workers. That would allow the automakers to slash wages and benefits — and a drastic reduction in labor costs may well be essential to their long-term survival. But this rosy picture belongs to normal times. There were three problems with allowing the automakers to be forced into bankruptcy just as the nation was sliding into a depression.

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In supporting the auto bailout bill the Democrats scored points with their constituencies by standing up for union workers, for the "greening" of the automobile industry, for states in which the domestic auto industry is centered that voted Democratic in the recent election (Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana), for the principle of active government, and for trying to avert a deepening of the current depression. The auto-bailout bill had earned the ire of Republican senators because of its failure to lean hard on the collective bargaining agreements negotiated by the United Auto Workers, because of the divided control of the industry that the bill created— divided among the manufacturers, a federal "car czar," and intrusive congressional oversight— and because of the considerable element of fantasy in the idea that Congress plus the President can revitalize the domestic auto industry.

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Quite apart from the UAW, the depression may give the Administration and Congress pause concerning measures to strengthen unions, such as the proposed Employee Free Choice Act. The act would abolish the requirement of secret elections to determine whether a workplace shall be unionized and, if the union prevails and union and employer cannot agree on the terms of a collective bargaining agreement, would require binding arbitration. A fall in wages is a problem in a depression, as we know, because it can further a deflationary spiral, although it can also reduce unemployment, so that the net effect is uncertain. But an increase in wages, and a reduction in the efficiency with which labor is utilized (because of union-imposed work rules), will have an unambiguously negative effect on output by increasing employers' labor costs, and the reduction in output will lead to an increase in unemployment.

Still Broke: Walmart's Remarkable Transformation and the Limits of Socially Conscious Capitalism by Rick Wartzman

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, An Inconvenient Truth, basic income, Bernie Sanders, call centre, collective bargaining, coronavirus, COVID-19, cryptocurrency, data science, Donald Trump, employer provided health coverage, fulfillment center, full employment, future of work, George Floyd, illegal immigration, immigration reform, income inequality, Jeff Bezos, job automation, Kickstarter, labor-force participation, low skilled workers, Marc Benioff, old-boy network, race to the bottom, RAND corporation, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, shareholder value, supply-chain management, TikTok, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, union organizing, universal basic income, War on Poverty, warehouse robotics, We are the 99%, women in the workforce, working poor

In return, the unions wouldn’t oppose Walmart’s move into these locations. As the SEIU and Walmart continued to meet through 2006, Stern kept Joe Hansen apprised. The UFCW leader knew his union was in no position to sit down alone with Walmart, but he also knew that the SEIU—because it wasn’t trying to get to a collective bargaining agreement with the company—might be able to hash out some things and, ultimately, even bring the UFCW into the deliberations. “It’s kind of like Switzerland has to carry on the conversation in certain situations,” Stern said. In actuality, the SEIU was equal parts noncombatant and combatant.

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“I knew how hard it was going to be,” O’Neill said. “I just think that’s what you have to do. It’s like if you’re a priest, you’ve got to keep out there until you’ve saved the flock.” What was different this time was OUR Walmart’s center of gravity. The UFCW knew it didn’t stand a chance of getting anywhere with a traditional collective bargaining campaign; the company had long ago shown that it was impervious to such efforts. And using political operatives to inflame the public about Walmart had also run its course. To chart a new path, the UFCW invited an eclectic group to Washington: labor and community organizers alongside experts on antitrust and supply-chain issues.

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But unless there is a government mandate, Walmart—and most every other company in America—will never move far enough or fast enough to provide people with a genuine living wage. Washington’s prod is the only way to get there. There is no mystery as to the policies we need to help workers regain their rightful share of the nation’s prosperity. I’d start with these: rewriting labor law to expand collective bargaining, as well as to foster new avenues for employees’ voices to be heard, including seats on corporate boards; making “full employment”—the point at which most everyone who wants a job can find one and a catalyst for rising wages—a primary goal of government; restoring overtime pay so that the majority of salaried workers qualify as they did in the 1970s, not just the 15 percent who do now; buttressing worker protections so that it’s harder to pilfer people’s wages or misclassify employees as contractors; and devising a health system that gives every American affordable access to good medical care, untethered to the workplace.

Getting Back to Full Employment: A Better Bargain for Working People by Dean Baker, Jared Bernstein

2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alan Greenspan, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, Asian financial crisis, business cycle, collective bargaining, declining real wages, full employment, George Akerlof, high-speed rail, income inequality, inflation targeting, low interest rates, mass immigration, minimum wage unemployment, new economy, Phillips curve, price stability, publication bias, quantitative easing, Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, rising living standards, selection bias, War on Poverty

The absence of full employment in most years since the 1970s was not the only factor in play; the reasons for the rise in inequality include globalization, technological change, a bubble-driven finance sector claiming disproportionate profit shares, declining unions, a falling value of the minimum wage, and more. But slack employment and its corollary – diminished bargaining power – get overlooked, in no small part because policymakers assume full employment is out of their control, though it is decidedly not. To give up on full employment is a mistake, because in an economy in which collective bargaining is minimal in the private sector and under siege in the public sector, full employment is the only route for working Americans can get ahead. Rising living standards for the majority require a labor market that is tight enough to force employers to raise compensation to the level where they can attract and keep the workers they need.

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Instead, they will be having their skills continually upgraded, as will their colleagues at work, as companies adjust their production in response to changes in demand and technology. This system has worked well in Germany in part because it has a long tradition of labor–management cooperation. About 20 percent of Germany’s workforce is unionized, but collective bargaining covers a much larger share, about 60 percent (in the United States only about 11 percent of the workforce are union members and 12.5 percent are covered by agreements).[46] Under German law, all large companies have workers’ councils that provide a formal opportunity for worker input regardless of whether or not the workers are unionized.

We Are All Fast-Food Workers Now: The Global Uprising Against Poverty Wages by Annelise Orleck

"World Economic Forum" Davos, airport security, American Legislative Exchange Council, anti-communist, Bernie Sanders, big-box store, Black Lives Matter, British Empire, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, card file, clean water, collective bargaining, corporate social responsibility, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, export processing zone, Ferguson, Missouri, financial deregulation, food desert, Food sovereignty, gentrification, gig economy, global supply chain, global value chain, immigration reform, independent contractor, indoor plumbing, Jeremy Corbyn, Kickstarter, land reform, land tenure, Mahatma Gandhi, mass immigration, McJob, means of production, new economy, payday loans, precariat, race to the bottom, Rana Plaza, rent-seeking, ride hailing / ride sharing, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, shareholder value, Shenzhen special economic zone , Skype, special economic zone, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, union organizing, War on Poverty, women in the workforce, working poor

“Lessons in global capitalism.” She smiles. “My education.”2 The union educates the women well, she says. “The rep comes to see the women at least twenty times a year and invites us to classes. We learn about labor rights and gender-based violence at work. They teach us how to organize, how to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement.” But there is a deeper connection, an emotional bond. “I consider the union my second mother,” she says. “When I have problems, union members care about me, about my working conditions. And when we are challenged the union helps us.” Before she became a union member, Tep was earning $30–$40 a month.

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Mary Kay Henry, the gifted and controversial organizer who became president of SEIU in 2010, sought ways to organize low-wage workers who were not, and might never be, union members, in order to build a national consensus that wages must rise. Both of these strategies have brought real change. The germ of what would become Fight for $15 was planted in the winter of 2011. Newly elected Wisconsin governor Scott Walker pushed the state to cut salaries and benefits. An ALEC bill was introduced to take away collective bargaining rights from public employees. Protests erupted at the state capitol in Madison. In a surprisingly strong response, eighty thousand people participated. Members of conservative police and firefighters’ unions joined more traditionally progressive nurses’ and teachers’ unions. Social media spread images of the protests worldwide.

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Sion Binos is tired and angry.10 Still, she takes hope in the young organizers she has recruited, women in their twenties and thirties who are savvy and smart and full of new ideas. They communicate and organize via smartphones and social media. “They are inventing something new,” she says with hope. Even in the newest “cheapest” place to produce, Ethiopia, where there is not yet a minimum wage law, trade union organizers have won collective bargaining and 25 percent wage increases since 2014. The movement is truly global. Binos continues to believe.11 “But we still need the basics,” she says. Many workers she organizes are children of farmers who have lost their lands. She points to a poster on the walls of the SENTRO building. A woman with her mouth taped shut holds an empty bowl in outstretched hands: “No Rice Without Freedom.

Were You Born on the Wrong Continent? by Thomas Geoghegan

Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, An Inconvenient Truth, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, Bob Geldof, business logic, collective bargaining, corporate governance, cross-subsidies, dark matter, David Brooks, declining real wages, deindustrialization, disinformation, Easter island, ending welfare as we know it, facts on the ground, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, haute cuisine, high-speed rail, income inequality, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, laissez-faire capitalism, low skilled workers, Martin Wolf, McJob, military-industrial complex, minimum wage unemployment, mittelstand, offshore financial centre, Paul Samuelson, payday loans, pensions crisis, plutocrats, Prenzlauer Berg, purchasing power parity, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Gordon, Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall, Saturday Night Live, Silicon Valley, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, union organizing, Wolfgang Streeck, women in the workforce

But that is bad news for upper-middle-class people like Barbara, whose 401(k) just got clobbered and now has to count more on Social Security. Okay, but hasn’t Europe cut back too? Even in the big example, Germany, where the public pension is just over 50 percent of working income, most Germans still have big supplements from collective bargaining. Besides, unlike us, who are deep in debt, Germans have high savings rates for their own accounts, which are not tied in to the stock market. Let’s assume that Alicia Munnell and other economists are correct and we should still get at least 67 percent of working income for retirement. That’s still true in Germany.

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Because getting your wage set outside the firm—over your head—helps you get more power within the firm. Even if you’re on the works council, you don’t have to ask the boss for a raise. Even if you’re on the supervisory board, you don’t ask. As Professor Martin Malin at Chicago-Kent College of Law once told me, “It takes the blood sport out of collective bargaining.” Compared to all of that, it’s not such a big deal who gets to set the closing hours. But why aren’t there huge nationwide strikes? They don’t riot. They don’t burn tires. It’s not like France or Italy. Well, think of the difference between the French and German model. In the French model, the workers are outside in the street and throwing rocks through the window.

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Let’s keep it, East Germany, a separate country, at least for five or six years,’ because we couldn’t afford it. It would ruin the whole country.” Specifically, he meant that, with the higher taxes that West Germans would have to pay to bail out East Germans, it would be impossible to keep the welfare state. It would be impossible to keep the system of collective bargaining. M. laid out the trap into which the left had fallen: to bail out the East Germans, the new Germany would have to run a deficit or cut benefits. Well, as they were about to introduce the euro under the Treaty of Maastricht, they were forbidden to run a deficit that might have weakened the new currency throughout Europe as a whole.

The Raging 2020s: Companies, Countries, People - and the Fight for Our Future by Alec Ross

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", "World Economic Forum" Davos, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, air gap, air traffic controllers' union, Airbnb, Albert Einstein, An Inconvenient Truth, autonomous vehicles, barriers to entry, benefit corporation, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, big-box store, British Empire, call centre, capital controls, clean water, collective bargaining, computer vision, coronavirus, corporate governance, corporate raider, COVID-19, deep learning, Deng Xiaoping, Didi Chuxing, disinformation, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Donald Trump, Double Irish / Dutch Sandwich, drone strike, dumpster diving, employer provided health coverage, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, future of work, general purpose technology, gig economy, Gini coefficient, global supply chain, Goldman Sachs: Vampire Squid, Gordon Gekko, greed is good, high-speed rail, hiring and firing, income inequality, independent contractor, information security, intangible asset, invisible hand, Jeff Bezos, knowledge worker, late capitalism, low skilled workers, Lyft, Marc Andreessen, Marc Benioff, mass immigration, megacity, military-industrial complex, minimum wage unemployment, mittelstand, mortgage tax deduction, natural language processing, Oculus Rift, off-the-grid, offshore financial centre, open economy, OpenAI, Parag Khanna, Paris climate accords, profit motive, race to the bottom, RAND corporation, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Bork, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, self-driving car, shareholder value, side hustle, side project, Silicon Valley, smart cities, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, sovereign wealth fund, sparse data, special economic zone, Steven Levy, stock buybacks, strikebreaker, TaskRabbit, tech bro, tech worker, transcontinental railway, transfer pricing, Travis Kalanick, trickle-down economics, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, union organizing, Upton Sinclair, vertical integration, working poor

We have labor laws that were written in 1947—nothing has been static in this country since 1947 except the labor laws.” When I pressed him for more specifics, he pointed to pending legislation that would strengthen penalties for companies that retaliate against workers who organize, expand collective bargaining rights, and weaken so-called right-to-work laws. “You also have to look at the trade laws, you have to look at the tax laws, you have to look at all the economic rules that have been written,” he added. He’s not wrong, but the fact that you have to, in his words, “look at all the economic rules that have been written” and rewrite labor laws that have not changed in seventy-five years highlights not just how much dramatic change is needed, but also how little progress Trumka and his peers have made in the last few decades.

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Instead of a race to the bottom, wage standards were decided by stakeholders from business, labor, and government and set at a satisfactory minimum standard, which Brunello then took 20 percent higher. In Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, more than half the workforces belong to labor unions, and more than 70 percent are covered by collective bargaining. In Denmark, Sweden, and Finland, unions are also responsible for administering unemployment insurance, which gives workers an incentive to sign up and pay dues. Today, these countries have some of the world’s highest rates of union membership. And unlike in the United States and United Kingdom, many of the European states seem to try to outdo themselves by making working conditions better.

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As of August 2020, the lowest-paid Australian workers made $14.23 per hour, nearly double the earnings of their American counterparts. Australians’ proclivity for collective action extends to the workplace. While less than 15 percent of Australian workers belong to a labor union, about 60 percent of the workforce is covered by collective bargaining agreements. The country’s labor markets are heavily regulated by the government, which reduces mobility but ensures a high standard of living for most Australians. While safety net programs are a point of political contention in the United States, they receive near-universal support among Australian lawmakers, Gillard said.

Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech by Brian Merchant

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Ada Lovelace, algorithmic management, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, big-box store, Black Lives Matter, Cambridge Analytica, Charles Babbage, ChatGPT, collective bargaining, colonial rule, commoditize, company town, computer age, computer vision, coronavirus, cotton gin, COVID-19, cryptocurrency, DALL-E, decarbonisation, deskilling, digital rights, Donald Trump, Edward Jenner, Elon Musk, Erik Brynjolfsson, factory automation, flying shuttle, Frederick Winslow Taylor, fulfillment center, full employment, future of work, George Floyd, gig economy, gigafactory, hiring and firing, hockey-stick growth, independent contractor, industrial robot, information asymmetry, Internet Archive, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, James Hargreaves, James Watt: steam engine, Jeff Bezos, Jessica Bruder, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Kevin Roose, Kickstarter, Lyft, Mark Zuckerberg, Marshall McLuhan, means of production, military-industrial complex, move fast and break things, Naomi Klein, New Journalism, On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, OpenAI, precariat, profit motive, ride hailing / ride sharing, Sam Bankman-Fried, scientific management, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, sovereign wealth fund, spinning jenny, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, super pumped, TaskRabbit, tech billionaire, tech bro, tech worker, techlash, technological determinism, Ted Kaczynski, The Future of Employment, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, Travis Kalanick, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, union organizing, universal basic income, W. E. B. Du Bois, warehouse automation, warehouse robotics, working poor, workplace surveillance

If merchants or shop owners refused to pay established rates or tried to bypass legal regulations with new technology, workers might smash the machinery they deemed “obnoxious.” At a time when organizing unions was illegal, it was a strategy embraced by workmen whose jobs were on the line with no other recourse: “collective bargaining by riot,” as one historian termed it. “The eighteenth-century master was constantly aware that an intolerable demand would produce, not a temporary loss of profits, but the destruction” of his machinery. These workers did not view technology as inherently progressive; they had not been taught to lionize disruption.

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If the Huddersfield Luddites could move successfully against a major operation in the region, it would imbue them with a new sense of power—a considerable strategic asset. “As the man you speak of is setting you at defiance, sooner you deal with him the better,” Weightman said. He then offered a window into how collective bargaining by riot works in practice: We have inspired such a wholesome dread of us at Nottingham, amongst all classes, that the threat of General Ludd is almost invariably sufficient. Our motions have been so rapid and our information respecting the possession of arms so accurate that few now dare to speak of us defiantly.

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When the Society was firing on all cylinders by the end of 1813, the organization he’d helped build was remarkably effective. Workers could strike for better wages with a buffer to rely on, and few if any frames in Nottingham were smashed that year, owing to the new method. Slowly, and modestly, the knitters’ conditions began to improve. The Society offered a glimpse of the future, when workers could collectively bargain to improve their conditions, to rally the only viable power they held against the machine owners—each other—even if its chief organizers were never confident it was fully legal under the oppressively interpreted laws. As such, the Society’s coat of arms showed the numerous districts it represented, along with an image of a mechanical loom and an arm gripping a hammer.

Austerity Britain: 1945-51 by David Kynaston

Alistair Cooke, anti-communist, Arthur Marwick, British Empire, Chelsea Manning, collective bargaining, continuous integration, deindustrialization, deskilling, Etonian, full employment, garden city movement, hiring and firing, industrial cluster, invisible hand, job satisfaction, labour mobility, Lewis Mumford, light touch regulation, mass immigration, moral panic, Neil Kinnock, occupational segregation, price mechanism, public intellectual, rent control, reserve currency, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, shared worldview, stakhanovite, strikebreaker, the market place, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, very high income, wage slave, washing machines reduced drudgery, wealth creators, women in the workforce, young professional

When agreeing in the late 1940s to go out on a limb for the Labour government, Deakin was adamant that a temporary wage freeze should in no way be taken as undermining the hallowed principle of free collective bargaining – a principle at the very heart of British trade unionism. Allan Flanders, the leading academic analyst of industrial relations in this period, explained in 1952 the all-important historical, largely nineteenth-century, context: The significance of collective bargaining to the workers might be summed up in the word, self-protection. It enabled them to protect their interests in relation to their employment in three ways.

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But we were also egalitarians, wishing to see a shift in the distribution of wealth towards those with lower incomes, and a shift of power over the conduct of their working lives and environment towards working men and women; and, for both these reasons, emphasising the importance of trade unions in industry, in the economy, and in society. We therefore attached special importance to collective bargaining as the means whereby trade unions pursue their objectives. The book itself was imbued with the assumption that enhanced trade union power was, if exercised in the appropriate way, an almost unequivocal social and economic good. The appropriate way included moderation in recourse to the strike weapon; the use wherever possible of industry-wide collective bargaining; and such bargaining to be reliant upon long-nurtured codes rather than externally imposed legal contracts.20Altogether, it was in its way a noble vision.

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The Treasury, not for the first or last time, gave a masterclass in institutional scepticism; there was much intellectual confusion as to what economic planning in peacetime actually meant and entailed, as epitomised by the muddle-headedness of Morrison, theoretically in charge of planning; and for more than two years there was the unwillingness of either the Ministry of Labour or the trade union leaders (for all their considerable goodwill towards the government) to countenance a wages policy, seen as a direct threat to the long, jealously guarded tradition of free collective bargaining – an unwillingness that more or less scuppered the chance of any meaningful manpower planning. But ultimately, what really killed central economic planning was the lack of willpower on the part of government. In particular, the Labour Party’s commitment to democratic socialism meant in practice an aversion to either new, unaccountable administrative mechanisms or any form of tripartism (ie government, management and labour) that seemed to threaten the sovereignty of the familiar parliamentary system.

The Global Auction: The Broken Promises of Education, Jobs, and Incomes by Phillip Brown, Hugh Lauder, David Ashton

active measures, affirmative action, An Inconvenient Truth, barriers to entry, Branko Milanovic, BRICs, business process, business process outsourcing, call centre, classic study, collective bargaining, corporate governance, creative destruction, credit crunch, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, deskilling, disruptive innovation, Dutch auction, Ford Model T, Frederick Winslow Taylor, full employment, future of work, glass ceiling, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, immigration reform, income inequality, industrial cluster, industrial robot, intangible asset, job automation, Jon Ronson, Joseph Schumpeter, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, market bubble, market design, meritocracy, neoliberal agenda, new economy, Paul Samuelson, pensions crisis, post-industrial society, profit maximization, purchasing power parity, QWERTY keyboard, race to the bottom, Richard Florida, Ronald Reagan, shared worldview, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, sovereign wealth fund, stem cell, tacit knowledge, tech worker, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, trade liberalization, transaction costs, trickle-down economics, vertical integration, winner-take-all economy, working poor, zero-sum game

Human capital ideas not only changed the way people thought about skills and productivity but also had wider political appeal, as they suggested a new relationship between capital (money) and labor (minds). Investment in human beings was no longer solely a source of wealth creation for companies but also a source of earning potential for individuals. What people were paid did not depend on owning one’s own business or result from collective bargaining that set employers against labor unions in a fight for a bigger slice of the cake. Rather, wages were based on a worker’s contribution to productivity, as earnings were assumed to reflect value added to the organization. Everyone could become a capitalist, whether or not people knew it (or liked it), by investing in themselves through learning.

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It is not only the greed of executives that is at issue; they are also the beneficiaries of a free market system that distorts income distribution in favor of a few. Free market policies shifted the balance of power in favor of shareholders and corporate bosses as much as the deregulation of global financial markets. By removing the potential for collective bargaining with the decline of union representation, market power became even more concentrated on the upper floors of corporate headquarters. Much like a game of Monopoly, unregulated markets have their own internal logic, as most of the money goes to those who own the houses and hotels on the prized streets of Manhattan.

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See also United Kingdom Brown, Gordon, 23 bailout, 111, 148, 151 Batra, Ravi, 178n21 Baumol, William, 152 Becker, Gary, 122–23 Brown, Phillip, 143, 182n3 Buchanan, James, 134 build to order, 101–2 Bush administration, 111–12 business processes, 51–52, 72, 74–76, 77, 79 Bussolo, Maurizio, 130–31 recessions, 148 reverse engineering, 42 riots, 10 call centers, 51–52, 73, 81 Callahan, David, 144 Cambridge University, 134 Canada, 30, 91 Cao, Cong, 44 technology transfer, 41 telecommunications industry, 54 trade imbalance, 108–9, 151 unemployment, 41, 47 wage rate increase, 59 Capco Consulting, 77 capital (defined), 162–63, 187n30 capitalism, 4–6, 10–11, 17, 23–26, 54, 67–68, 110–11, 113, 115, 151, 157, 161, 180n25, war for talent, 88–89 WTO (World Trade Organization), 41 Christian, Parenti, 174n33 classical economics theory, 100 187n26 casino economy, 187n31 club of rich nations, 30, 32, 168n2 cold-callers, 74 CFO Magazine, 79 Chambers, John, 85 Chanel, 114 collective bargaining, 17, 125, 160 colleges and universities, 6, 7–9, 25–26, 30, 31, 32, 40–41, 46–47, 87–88, 93–95, 116, childhood, 11–12, 143–46, 160 China. See also BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) nations auto industry, 54 Blackstone Group Greater China, 43, Collins, Randall, 139 The Coming of Post-Industrial Society, 18 comparative advantage, 111 180n24 cheating scandal, 144 competencies, 78–79 competition China Development Bank (CDB), 42 China International Marine Containers Group (CIMC), 57–58 academic credentials, 139 Asian Tigers, 18 and education, 40 China Investment Corporation, 42–43 Chinese Academy of Science, 44 elite universities, 95 global auction, 132 Chinese Dragons, 58 education, 7–8, 29–30, 32, 32–35 global auction, 148 global economy, 3 human capital, 18, 106, 161 knowledge economy, 15 government as economic partner, 157–58 green technologies, 157 knowledge wars, 20, 22–23, 30, 47, 164 mass production, 71–72 Harvard Girl Yiting Liu, 145 Higher Education Mega Centre, 29 Human Genome Project, 40 neoliberalism, 24 and prosperity, 154–55 quality-cost revolution, 50 income inequalities, 129 intellectual property rights (IPRs), 53 knowledge wars, 20 middle class, 2, 130 modernization, 157 nanotechnology program, 44 self-interest, 40 STEM subjects studies, 155 supply chains, 104–5 transnational companies, 99–100 trust relations, 107 war for talent, 87, 89–93 opportunity trap, 137 Project 211, 33 quality-cost revolution, 50, 55, 60–61 R&D (research and development), 42–43, 53, 157 190 119, 121, 133–34, 136, 140, 153, 162, 177n26 Index winner-takes-all, 11, 165n7 computer industry, 42, 56, 66, 72–77, 81, 89, 100–102, 174n27.

With Liberty and Dividends for All: How to Save Our Middle Class When Jobs Don't Pay Enough by Peter Barnes

adjacent possible, Alfred Russel Wallace, banks create money, basic income, Buckminster Fuller, carbon tax, collective bargaining, computerized trading, creative destruction, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, declining real wages, deindustrialization, diversified portfolio, driverless car, en.wikipedia.org, Fractional reserve banking, full employment, Glass-Steagall Act, hydraulic fracturing, income inequality, It's morning again in America, Jaron Lanier, Jevons paradox, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, Joseph Schumpeter, land reform, Mark Zuckerberg, Money creation, Network effects, oil shale / tar sands, Paul Samuelson, power law, profit maximization, quantitative easing, rent-seeking, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, sovereign wealth fund, Stuart Kauffman, the map is not the territory, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, transaction costs, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, Upton Sinclair, Vilfredo Pareto, wealth creators, winner-take-all economy

Sustaining a large middle class requires counterbalancing the profit-maximizing imperative of corporations. For much of the twentieth century, the requisite counterforce came from labor unions. In the United States and Western Europe, labor unions finished the job that Henry Ford started. Through collective bargaining, they drove up wages and shortened the workweek; through political power, they won such benefits as unemployment insurance and Medicare. In countries like Germany and Sweden, where labor unions have remained strong, so has the middle class. In the United States, by contrast, union membership peaked in 1945 at 35 percent of nonagricultural workers, then started declining.

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See also Carbon capping in California, 117–118 Clean Air Act creating, 99 climate change and, 99–100 labor unions and, 131–132 offsets in, 104–105 Capital gains, 47 Capitalism creative destruction and, 120 everyone-gets-a-share capitalism, 3–4, 42, 126 types of income and, 27–28 winner-take-all capitalism, 3, 33–34 Carbon capping, 97–118 European carbon trading system, 99, 104–105 Carbon dioxide carbon capping, 97–118 carbon taxing, 113–116 environmental movement and, 135–136 pollution permits, 93 Carbon Limits and Energy for America’s Renewal (CLEAR) Act, 142 Carbon taxing, 113–116 CheatNeutral.com, 104 China, 25–26, 105 Citizen’s income, 79–80 Civil War, debt-free money distribution and, 91–92 Clean Air Act, 99 Climate change, 99–100 Clinton, William J., 99, 114 Coal-burning power plants, 99 Coase, Ronald, 98–99 Collective bargaining, 19 Collins, Chuck, 33 Collins, Susan, 110 Commercial banks. See banks Committee on Economic Security (FDR), 41–42 Common Assets Trust in Vermont, 127–128 Common Sense (Paine), 7–8 Competition and monopolies, 51–52 Co-owned wealth. See also Dividends; Rent adjacent possible and, 121 audit of, 62 benefits, entitlement to, 62 components of, 60–61 defined, 11 at economy-wide level, 140–141 externalities and, 64 guidelines for creating, 89–92 management of, 62 mental ideas and, 122–127 one person, one share, 123–124 political environment and, 120 potential dividends and, 139–146 pre-distribution and, 125–127 quantity of assets needed for, 93–95 shared wealth dividends, 124–125 specific assets and, 141–146 user fees for, 85–86 Copyrights, rent from, 144 Cowen, Tyler, 135 Creative destruction, 120 Credo, 45 Crisis preparing for, 121–127 to-do lists and preparing for, 127–131 Currency trading, 92 D Dales, John, 98 Darwin, Charles, 120 Debt fractional reserve banking and, 90 leverage, 47 Debt-free money distribution, 90–91 Lincoln, Abraham and, 91 Defined-benefits pensions, 123 Deindustrialization, 17 Dell Computers, 25–26 Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, 109 Democrats and direct spending, 22 The Depression and the Townsend Plan, 133–134 Deregulation, 21 Derivatives, potential revenue from transaction fees, 143 Deunionization, 18–19 Distribution of wealth, 14 Dividends, 9–10.

New Laws of Robotics: Defending Human Expertise in the Age of AI by Frank Pasquale

affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, algorithmic bias, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Anthropocene, augmented reality, Automated Insights, autonomous vehicles, basic income, battle of ideas, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, Bill Joy: nanobots, bitcoin, blockchain, Brexit referendum, call centre, Cambridge Analytica, carbon tax, citizen journalism, Clayton Christensen, collective bargaining, commoditize, computer vision, conceptual framework, contact tracing, coronavirus, corporate social responsibility, correlation does not imply causation, COVID-19, critical race theory, cryptocurrency, data is the new oil, data science, decarbonisation, deep learning, deepfake, deskilling, digital divide, digital twin, disinformation, disruptive innovation, don't be evil, Donald Trump, Douglas Engelbart, driverless car, effective altruism, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, Erik Brynjolfsson, Evgeny Morozov, fake news, Filter Bubble, finite state, Flash crash, future of work, gamification, general purpose technology, Google Chrome, Google Glasses, Great Leap Forward, green new deal, guns versus butter model, Hans Moravec, high net worth, hiring and firing, holacracy, Ian Bogost, independent contractor, informal economy, information asymmetry, information retrieval, interchangeable parts, invisible hand, James Bridle, Jaron Lanier, job automation, John Markoff, Joi Ito, Khan Academy, knowledge economy, late capitalism, lockdown, machine readable, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, means of production, medical malpractice, megaproject, meta-analysis, military-industrial complex, Modern Monetary Theory, Money creation, move fast and break things, mutually assured destruction, natural language processing, new economy, Nicholas Carr, Nick Bostrom, Norbert Wiener, nuclear winter, obamacare, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), open immigration, OpenAI, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, paperclip maximiser, paradox of thrift, pattern recognition, payday loans, personalized medicine, Peter Singer: altruism, Philip Mirowski, pink-collar, plutocrats, post-truth, pre–internet, profit motive, public intellectual, QR code, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, RAND corporation, Ray Kurzweil, recommendation engine, regulatory arbitrage, Robert Shiller, Rodney Brooks, Ronald Reagan, self-driving car, sentiment analysis, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, Singularitarianism, smart cities, smart contracts, software is eating the world, South China Sea, Steve Bannon, Strategic Defense Initiative, surveillance capitalism, Susan Wojcicki, tacit knowledge, TaskRabbit, technological solutionism, technoutopianism, TED Talk, telepresence, telerobotics, The Future of Employment, The Turner Diaries, Therac-25, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, Turing test, universal basic income, unorthodox policies, wage slave, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, working poor, workplace surveillance , Works Progress Administration, zero day

To alleviate economic pressures toward premature digitization, governments should help colleges pay adjuncts and education technologists fairly, while reducing student debt burdens.84 A similar dynamic should inform policy in elementary and secondary schools, promoting training for teachers so that they can be full partners in the use of technology in the classroom, rather than having technology imposed on them from above. Collective bargaining agreements and legal protections give unionized workers a chance to help shape the conditions of their labor, including the ways in which technology is adopted. Unions have helped teachers gain basic rights on the job and should give them a right to structured participation in the way future AI and robotics are deployed in the classroom.85 This ideal of worker self-governance is taken even further in the case of professions.

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In the long run, they may evolve into professions with distinctive, socially recognized prerogatives to apply their expertise (in situations ranging from data collection to evaluation). Teachers, doctors, and nurses assert themselves in this way, and their example is already influencing many other workplaces. Think, for instance, of Uber drivers capable of collectively bargaining for safety measures, or capable of disputing unfair evaluations of their work. In this vision, the drivers are not seen as mere data reserves, gradually paving the way for their own obsolescence. Rather, they are an integral part of a gradual social realization of a safer, faster, and more reliable transport infrastructure.17 Traditional economic approaches elide workplace politics by modeling employment as good-faith bargaining.

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See also caregiving children: dangers of behaviorist approach to educating, 75–77; and the downsides of online learning, 83, 86; ethics of collecting data from, 73–75; importance of human teachers for, 25, 65, 68–71; in less developed countries, 81–83; and positive robotic helpers, 77–81, 87; vulnerable to misuse of online media, 72, 97 China: AI arms race in, 165; social credit scoring in, 10–11, 132; development programs in, 169; edtech in, 60–61, 75, 77; as exporter of surveillance equipment, 166–167; facial recognition software in, 126; health sector in, 191; human-robot interaction in, 54–55; and land mines, 157; loyalty assessment in, 11, 160; military and military spending of, 147, 154, 159, 167–168, 291n74, 292n84; Muslims in, 126, 160, 167; online media platforms in, 60, 115; penalties in, for political involvement, 136; politics in, 160; prisons in, 124; and Project Dragonfly, 166; social credit in, 136–139, 160; surveillance in, 61, 160, 167–168; and Taiwan, 160, 163–164; traditional classrooms in, 81; treatment of the Uyhgurs in, 122 Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 160, 161 Christie’s (auction house), 220 CIA, 165 Cifu, Adam, 58 Citibank, 119, 136 civics, 65, 82, 91 Civilian Conservation Corps, 186 civil liberties, 128 civil rights, 122 clean energy, 182 cleaning (jobs in), 5, 49, 182; cleaners, robotic / automated, 171, 172 click farms, 92, 108 climate change, 169, 175, 186, 206; denialists, 98; and the shift from manufacturing to service jobs, 190; and transport solutions, 179 clinical decision support software (CDSS), 37–38, 244n16, 244n16, 244–245n17 Clinton, Hillary, 90, 93, 94, 98 “coding boot camps,” 66 Cohen, Julie, 276n29 Cole, August, 147 collective bargaining, 88, 177. See also unions colleges and universities: aims of, 63–64; for caregivers, 192; citizens entitled to four years of, 175; content of (intrinsic vs. instrumental), 178–179; costs of, 85, 87; evaluation in, 141–142; for-profit, 134; free, 135; making students “robot-proof,” 173–174; online, 84–86; STEM training at, 173.

The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality From the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century by Walter Scheidel

agricultural Revolution, assortative mating, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Branko Milanovic, British Empire, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, classic study, collective bargaining, colonial rule, Columbian Exchange, conceptual framework, confounding variable, corporate governance, cosmological principle, CRISPR, crony capitalism, dark matter, declining real wages, democratizing finance, demographic transition, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Downton Abbey, Edward Glaeser, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial deregulation, fixed income, Francisco Pizarro, full employment, Gini coefficient, global pandemic, Great Leap Forward, guns versus butter model, hiring and firing, income inequality, John Markoff, knowledge worker, land reform, land tenure, low skilled workers, means of production, mega-rich, Network effects, nuclear winter, offshore financial centre, plutocrats, race to the bottom, recommendation engine, rent control, rent-seeking, road to serfdom, Robert Gordon, Ronald Reagan, Second Machine Age, Simon Kuznets, synthetic biology, The Future of Employment, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, transaction costs, transatlantic slave trade, universal basic income, very high income, working-age population, zero-sum game

This form of worker organization was employed to motivate the labor force for the war effort and provided a basis for the creation of enterprise-based unions under occupation. The Labor Union Law was drafted immediately after the arrival of U.S. forces, in the fall of 1945, based on prewar plans that had failed. Passed at the very end of that year, it gave workers the right to organize, strike, and engage in collective bargaining. Membership soared: in 1946, 40 percent of workers were unionized, and almost 60 percent were by 1949. Benefits on top of wages increased, and the health insurance and pension systems created during the war were expanded. Unions proved instrumental in establishing cooperative industrial relations, with their emphasis on seniority wages, job security—and, most important from a leveling perspective, by fostering consensus regarding a new wage structure that determined pay based on age, need, living standards, prices, and inflation.

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Formalized from the 1950s onward, the Japanese tax system imposed a marginal rate of 60 percent to 75 percent on top incomes and an estate tax in excess of 70 percent on the largest fortunes. This helped contain income inequality and wealth accumulation well into the 1990s, just as strong protections for tenants depressed housing rental income and collective bargaining ensured ongoing wage compression.25 The war and its consequences made leveling sudden, massive, and sustainable. The bloodiest years in Japanese history, a war that cost millions of lives and visited enormous destruction on the homeland, had produced a uniquely equalizing outcome. This outcome was made possible by a novel type of warfare that required full demographic and economic mobilization.

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Sweden likewise witnessed a sudden rise in top income shares during World War I, followed by a sharp decline by 1920, and so did Denmark. In both countries, the top 1 percent income share briefly exploded to an exceptional 28 percent in 1916 or 1917. The Danish state was slow to impose price and rent controls, and a collective bargaining agreement that did not expire until 1916 depressed real wages for workers at a time of rapid economic growth. Taxation rose only feebly. (There are no usable income share data for Norway for these years.31) By contrast, World War II coincided with opposite trends in several of the few European countries that escaped the conflict.

The Green New Deal: Why the Fossil Fuel Civilization Will Collapse by 2028, and the Bold Economic Plan to Save Life on Earth by Jeremy Rifkin

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 1919 Motor Transport Corps convoy, 2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, autonomous vehicles, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, bike sharing, blockchain, book value, borderless world, business cycle, business process, carbon footprint, carbon tax, circular economy, collective bargaining, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, creative destruction, decarbonisation, digital rights, do well by doing good, electricity market, en.wikipedia.org, energy transition, failed state, general purpose technology, ghettoisation, green new deal, Greta Thunberg, high-speed rail, hydrogen economy, impact investing, information asymmetry, intangible asset, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, invisible hand, it's over 9,000, Joseph Schumpeter, means of production, megacity, megaproject, military-industrial complex, Network effects, new economy, off grid, off-the-grid, oil shale / tar sands, peak oil, planetary scale, prudent man rule, remunicipalization, renewable energy credits, rewilding, Ronald Reagan, shareholder value, sharing economy, Sidewalk Labs, Silicon Valley, Skype, smart cities, smart grid, sovereign wealth fund, Steven Levy, subprime mortgage crisis, the built environment, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Tim Cook: Apple, trade route, union organizing, urban planning, vertical integration, warehouse automation, women in the workforce, zero-sum game

Stymied, organized labor found itself with little left in its recruiting toolkit. What to do? We argued that America’s labor union leaders needed to wake up from a long sleep to a new and potentially powerful and promising reality. While slumbering, their millions of workers, both in public and private employment, had part of their weekly wages deferred via collective bargaining contracts in the form of pension funds, retrievable upon retirement. Nation-states, provinces, and cities around the world had been following America’s lead, establishing similar pension-fund accounts for both public employees and workers in the private sector. In America, we said, pension funds are a new form of wealth that has emerged over the past thirty years to become the largest single pool of private capital in the world.

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Any use of unionized pension funds in green infrastructure investments and related projects must include unionized workforces in the roll-outs, wherever possible, so that workers’ pension capital isn’t used, once again, to finance companies that are anti-union and that consciously eliminate union jobs on their worksites. Since only 11 percent of the American workforce is currently unionized and there will be green infrastructure projects that can’t fill workloads with sufficient unionized workforces, there will need to be at least a guarantee that protects the rights of workers to organize and collectively bargain, if they so choose. The matchmaker in the coming together of public and private pension funds and the green infrastructure build-out is green banks. Their mission is to provide a percentage of available capital for the express purpose of financing large-scale build-outs of the Third Industrial Revolution green infrastructure.

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Seventeenth, the use of union pension fund capital to finance federal, state, municipal, and county Third Industrial Revolution infrastructure projects should be conditional on ensuring that unionized workforces are employed wherever possible. Since only 11 percent of the American workforce is unionized, all Third Industrial Revolution infrastructure projects must also protect the right of workers to organize and safeguard collective bargaining rights. The state, municipal, and county governments should also provide “just transition” funds for communities that are economically dependent on the extracting, refining, and distributing of fossil fuels and should prioritize the transition from these stranded industries into the new green businesses and employment opportunities of a Third Industrial Revolution.

Innovation and Its Enemies by Calestous Juma

3D printing, additive manufacturing, agricultural Revolution, Asilomar, Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, autonomous vehicles, behavioural economics, big-box store, biodiversity loss, business cycle, Cass Sunstein, classic study, clean water, collective bargaining, colonial rule, computer age, creative destruction, CRISPR, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, deskilling, disruptive innovation, driverless car, electricity market, energy transition, Erik Brynjolfsson, fail fast, financial innovation, global value chain, Honoré de Balzac, illegal immigration, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, invention of movable type, invention of the printing press, Joseph Schumpeter, knowledge economy, loss aversion, Marc Andreessen, means of production, Menlo Park, mobile money, New Urbanism, Nicholas Carr, pensions crisis, phenotype, precautionary principle, Ray Kurzweil, Recombinant DNA, refrigerator car, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, smart grid, smart meter, stem cell, Steve Jobs, synthetic biology, systems thinking, tacit knowledge, technological singularity, The Future of Employment, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Travis Kalanick

The new machinery allowed employers to replace high-skilled textile artisans with cheaper low-skilled labor. Fearing the loss of their livelihoods, textile artisans throughout Britain destroyed weaving machinery and other parts of their employers’ property, beginning in 1811 in Nottingham. The goal of this “collective bargaining by riot” was to force the end of mechanization in the textile industry.61 General public sentiment at the time opposed both the new machinery and the replacement of high-skilled workers with low-skilled labor in Britain, which made it possible for the Luddites to slow down the mechanization process.

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CRLA claimed that UC overemphasized research on mechanization and agricultural technology, thus helping agricultural businesses at the expense of the family farm and the consumer. Specifically, the organization stated that UC’s research displaced farmworkers, eliminated small farms, harmed consumers, impaired the quality of rural life, and impeded collective bargaining.39 It asserted that in response to these grievances more resources should be applied to enhance the quality of life for small-scale farmers in California. This case sheds light on the sensitivity of mechanization, as well as on the extent to which parties will go to protect their interests.

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Bourke, 163 Coconut oil, in margarine, 113–114 Coffee, 44–67 coffee beans (bunn), 49 coffee euphoria, 50–51 conclusions on, 64–67 debates over, 6 Europe, entry into, 54–64 expansion of trade, 53 history of, 46 indirect challenges to, 296 as “junior alcohol,” 304, 369n70 laws against, 302 origins of, 45–47 overview, 44–45 rumors about, 310 spread of, 47–54, 297 Sufis’ use of, 328n11 Vienna, coffee trade in, 297 Coffeehouses bans on, 49–50 as cultural innovation, 53–54 in England, 56–57, 60, 296 impact of growth of, 297, 329n36 in Marseilles, 55 as spaces for political discourse, 47, 52 in Yemen, 48 The Coffee Man’s Grenado Discharged upon the Maiden’s Complaint Against Coffee (pamphlet), 58 Cognitive components of attitudes, 36 Cohen, Stanley, 236 Cold storage, 185–187. See also Mechanical refrigeration Collective bargaining by riot, 26–27 Colomb (University of Aix freshman), 55–56 Colonialism, 57 Coloration of margarine, 105, 108 Columbian Exposition, cold-storage building fire at, 183 Columbia Records, 212, 216, 218 Command economies, free-market economies vs., 28 Commercial lighting systems, 145 Commission of the European Union, 286 Commission to Investigate the Subject of Cold Storage of Food (Massachusetts), 186–187, 188 Committee on Cold Storage (Warehousemen’s Association), 196 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), 229 Communication, scientific and technical, changing ecology of, 312–314 Compact discs, 220 Compagnonnages (trade organizations), 30 Competition in capitalism, 146 Complex systems, 27, 143.

The Job: The Future of Work in the Modern Era by Ellen Ruppel Shell

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", 3D printing, Abraham Maslow, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, airport security, Albert Einstein, AlphaGo, Amazon Mechanical Turk, basic income, Baxter: Rethink Robotics, big-box store, blue-collar work, Buckminster Fuller, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Clayton Christensen, cloud computing, collective bargaining, company town, computer vision, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, data science, deskilling, digital divide, disruptive innovation, do what you love, Donald Trump, Downton Abbey, Elon Musk, emotional labour, Erik Brynjolfsson, factory automation, follow your passion, Frederick Winslow Taylor, future of work, game design, gamification, gentrification, glass ceiling, Glass-Steagall Act, hiring and firing, human-factors engineering, immigration reform, income inequality, independent contractor, industrial research laboratory, industrial robot, invisible hand, It's morning again in America, Jeff Bezos, Jessica Bruder, job automation, job satisfaction, John Elkington, John Markoff, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, Joseph Schumpeter, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, Kodak vs Instagram, labor-force participation, low skilled workers, Lyft, manufacturing employment, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, means of production, move fast and break things, new economy, Norbert Wiener, obamacare, offshore financial centre, Paul Samuelson, precariat, Quicken Loans, Ralph Waldo Emerson, risk tolerance, Robert Gordon, Robert Shiller, Rodney Brooks, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, shareholder value, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Snapchat, Steve Jobs, stock buybacks, TED Talk, The Chicago School, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Thomas L Friedman, Thorstein Veblen, Tim Cook: Apple, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, universal basic income, urban renewal, Wayback Machine, WeWork, white picket fence, working poor, workplace surveillance , Y Combinator, young professional, zero-sum game