Both grew during that period. Cause and effect is anecdotal?
I'm reminded of a correlation between the eastern seaboard illegal rum-running trade, and the salaries of methodist ministers. The tongue-in-cheek suggestion was made that either the Ministers benefitted from the increased turmoil caused by rum, or that the Ministers were directly involved in the trade!
Really? Because I see low paid service workers making one one hundredth of what software engineers make. And one thousandth of what CEOs make. That’s not due to automation automating jobs. I call bullshit. There’s something else going on.
"How much of this change is due to automation? Growing income inequality could also stem from, among other things, the declining prevalence of labor unions, market concentration begetting a lack of competition for labor, or other types of technological change."
One of the most interesting hypotheticals to consider is what would have happened if U.S. workers and their unions weren't beaten in the struggle with employers in the 1970s.
Collective bargaining might have channeled innovation into qualitatively different technical paths that were more for the great majority than the path we actually went down. The major political parties might have remained accountable to working people qua working people.
David Nobel's "Forces of Production" examines one set of technical decisions - around the user interface for computer numeric control machine tools - that was seemingly made for the benefits of employers at the expense of organized workers (machinists). Whether you accept his argument in that particular instance, it raises the question of how historically contingent the design of particular artifacts might be, and to what extent they are determined by more or less historically unvarying physical or psychological ("human factors") constraints.
Not only were the unions beaten, they were villified to the point most Americans hate even the concept of organized labor with the same breath they hate not having paid sick leave. It's probably not a fixable situation.
I would say "technology" is more appropriate than "automation". That and globalization have done it.
Example: I live in Baltimore, a city that used to have an array of industries paying living wage blue-collar jobs that didn't require a lot in the way of education or other qualifications. All those industries -- shipping/stevedoring, shipbuilding, steel, auto manufacturing, general manufacturing -- were either globalized and went overseas or in the case of shipping underwent a technology shift (containerization) that eliminated most of the good-paying jobs.
The white collar jobs were hit more by technology/automation. The city used to be a regional banking/insurance center, but between consolidation of banks or insurance companies to compete in wider markets and technology automating most of the clerical-level stuff, those jobs disappeared too.
The only jobs left in the city now are at the bottom or the top of the wage scale, the middle is completely gone. And you can easily see the impact it has had on the city.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 29.9 ms ] threadI'm reminded of a correlation between the eastern seaboard illegal rum-running trade, and the salaries of methodist ministers. The tongue-in-cheek suggestion was made that either the Ministers benefitted from the increased turmoil caused by rum, or that the Ministers were directly involved in the trade!
One of the most interesting hypotheticals to consider is what would have happened if U.S. workers and their unions weren't beaten in the struggle with employers in the 1970s.
Collective bargaining might have channeled innovation into qualitatively different technical paths that were more for the great majority than the path we actually went down. The major political parties might have remained accountable to working people qua working people.
David Nobel's "Forces of Production" examines one set of technical decisions - around the user interface for computer numeric control machine tools - that was seemingly made for the benefits of employers at the expense of organized workers (machinists). Whether you accept his argument in that particular instance, it raises the question of how historically contingent the design of particular artifacts might be, and to what extent they are determined by more or less historically unvarying physical or psychological ("human factors") constraints.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/18/majorities-...
Example: I live in Baltimore, a city that used to have an array of industries paying living wage blue-collar jobs that didn't require a lot in the way of education or other qualifications. All those industries -- shipping/stevedoring, shipbuilding, steel, auto manufacturing, general manufacturing -- were either globalized and went overseas or in the case of shipping underwent a technology shift (containerization) that eliminated most of the good-paying jobs.
The white collar jobs were hit more by technology/automation. The city used to be a regional banking/insurance center, but between consolidation of banks or insurance companies to compete in wider markets and technology automating most of the clerical-level stuff, those jobs disappeared too.
The only jobs left in the city now are at the bottom or the top of the wage scale, the middle is completely gone. And you can easily see the impact it has had on the city.