>I’ve been trying to learn more about the forces preventing economic mobility in the U.S., and it helped me understand the role federal policies have played in creating racial segregation in American cities.
Perhaps consider the large-scale consequences of wage-fixing by the tech giants including Microsoft in the early computer industry? Maybe divorcing the compensation workers received totally from the value of the work they were doing (the actual value to the company) and letting annual increases fall so far behind annual efficiency increases had something to do with it?
Around 1980, wages died. Around 1980, computers were introduced to the workplace. Around 1980, average worker productivity stopped going up by 1 or 2% per year but jumped to 10% or 20% a year thanks to those computers. These things are not mere coincidence. To me, they smell a lot like exactly what happened with the rise of industrialized factories that reduced entire families to working 16 hours a day, 6 days a week, children included, just to feed themselves. Everyone said 'the machines do the work, they don't deserve any more money.' And they were reduced to starving. And according to any statistic you care to look at, we are headed directly back to that situation.
Interestingly, social mores around sex originally became extremely restrictive during the Industrial Era due to a need to suppress the birth rate of the lower class.... and we are seeing sexual mores become more restrictive by the day now too, though families literally starving as a result of adolescent workers having babies they couldn't afford to feed is thankfully rare.
Your comment would be more meaningful if it were as well thought out as the book Bill Gates read. A Hacker News comment will have difficulty competing with a well researched piece of work.
Perhaps consider the large-scale consequences of wage-fixing by the tech giants including Microsoft in the early computer industry? Maybe divorcing the compensation workers received totally from the value of the work they were doing (the actual value to the company) and letting annual increases fall so far behind annual efficiency increases had something to do with it?
Around 1980, wages died. Around 1980, computers were introduced to the workplace. Around 1980, average worker productivity stopped going up by 1 or 2% per year but jumped to 10% or 20% a year thanks to those computers. These things are not mere coincidence. To me, they smell a lot like exactly what happened with the rise of industrialized factories that reduced entire families to working 16 hours a day, 6 days a week, children included, just to feed themselves. Everyone said 'the machines do the work, they don't deserve any more money.' And they were reduced to starving. And according to any statistic you care to look at, we are headed directly back to that situation.
Interestingly, social mores around sex originally became extremely restrictive during the Industrial Era due to a need to suppress the birth rate of the lower class.... and we are seeing sexual mores become more restrictive by the day now too, though families literally starving as a result of adolescent workers having babies they couldn't afford to feed is thankfully rare.