The Great Re-Evaluation – Robert Reich | Hacker News Reader

The Great Re-Evaluation – Robert Reich

robertreich.substack.com

19 pointsartur_makly9 comments

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>Robert Reich - "Unions are plain wrong about NAFTA causing the US to lose jobs"

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1993-07-14-930714...

whatever people like Reich or Krugman say, it's a pretty good bet to do the opposite

> whatever people like Reich or Krugman say, it's a pretty good bet to do the opposite

I'm more inclined to not to listen to people who dig up random 28 year old quotes to make a point like that.

Nope and nope. On the contrary.

TLDL:

People don’t like mind numbing or back breaking jobs.

Claims we are having social revolution.

We have no unions.

Pandemic showed people they are free to do something different.

Reiterates social revolution.

—

I think people are more cognizant of their return on time. The market will need to pay what the workers will accept. Note prices today...

I don’t think labor price renegotiations constitute a social revolution in the historical sense of the phrase. Maybe a small one.

>I don’t think labor price renegotiations constitute a social revolution in the historical sense of the phrase. Maybe a small one.

I sort of weakly disagree, a labor movement (of price negotiation) would be extremely subversive of the business status quo. I say weakly because the kind of 'revolution' discussed seems to be much less of an organized movement and instead a spontanious zeitgeist in my view.

For context of Reich's thinking here I would recommend his 2017 Netflix documentary "Saving Capitalism"[0]

[0] - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6185286/

> Maybe a small one.

Reich used the word "revolution" rather loosely. That's OK. It is not a full blown "social revolution" as you point out. But it's certainly not just a blip, nor a "V-shaped" recovery with everything back to normal after nearly 2 years.

On the other hand, how long does it take for social revolutions to unfold? Even "spontaneous" revolutions like the Russian Revolution in 1917 had an ongoing build up that lasted decades. It had a precipitating event (don't remember what it was) that lead to people taking to the streets, but that wasn't the root cause.

Could this change in the labor market be a sign of something deeper bubbling up, or the early beginnings of a social revolution (along with other signals)? Sure, it's at least worthy of consideration.

A related podcast from the far end of the ideological spectrum at The American Mind[1]. Blurb: "The US is currently facing unprecedented logistical shortcomings brought on by government restrictions. Meanwhile, inflation has been steadily skyrocketing as the feds continue to print obscene amounts [of] money. In other words, the time is just right for the steady creep of a new social credit system into the limelight. "

[1] https://open.spotify.com/episode/0rcE27wcg39GtLw5IovASU?si=D...

It's interesting that it only takes a small fraction of the people acting different to make large changes in the market, regardless of the cause.

In my case, I am unable to do my previous work, having gotten sick at the beginning of the current public health crisis, and never recovering fully. I'm hoping to jump back a few careers and pick up programming again, as this is far less physically demanding. But for now, I'm a grain in the sands of this quantity that is acting different than it used to.

The two year average quit rate is no higher than the previous two year average - there is a slight uptick in 2021 compared to 2019, but all of the dramatic headlines are comparing to 2020 when there was a much more significant dip.

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