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Comment by bronbron | Hacker News Reader

> Starting in the ’80s, productivity gains were no longer shared with workers.

Has anyone really looked into why this is? It's easy to say 'lol greed' and be done with it, but it seems silly to presume that people were any less greedy in the 60's and 70's.

'Globalization' might make a little bit of sense as to why individual companies might pay relatively less taxes to the US government, but I'd need more context than that before I'd be willing to accept globalization as the answer to why production gains aren't really being shared with workers anymore.

If the answer is that collective bargaining has been getting less and less effective over time, why is that?

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The answer is likely to be spread over a number of areas, collective bargaining being only one, and globalization of the labor market another, where wealth has gained power versus workers.

So the answer is "greed," but not more greed, as you say. Just stronger, more sophisticated, and more effective greed. Which is a distinction that might be lost on both sides for different reasons.

> If the answer is that collective bargaining has been getting less and less effective over time, why is that?

I know virtually nothing about this area, but I'd guess that the country transitioning from a manufacturing economy with a strong union presence to a service economy where unions are not strong has something to do with it.

Increases job mobility probably doesn't help either. My impression is that my parent's generation felt they would work at the same company for decades. When you have that mindset, your coworkers are an important community for you and things like unions are worth the effort.

When everyone switches jobs every couple of years, if you aren't happy, instead of collectively organizing and fixing the problem, you just leave for greener pastures. Of course, it's an illusion because the end result is that those pastures are usually the same, but I think that's part of how we got here.

Actually we're the problem. The 1980's represented the rise of the computer age and a massive acceleration in automated production. The trend is long term and shows no sign of stopping.

TLDR; As computers replace manual labor the boss pays less out less of his profits for labor and we have an economy where the rich get richer. Once upon a time profit growth equated to wage growth but modern computer technology has changed this.

Your TLDR was longer than the original three sentences...

Can't we fix that by redistributing computing and robotics power?

Not sure I follow your reasoning. How so?

The decrease in manufacturing jobs and union power was a part of it. The failure to raise a minimum wage another part.

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