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.
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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.
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.
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]