A Sin & a Shame in the Times pulls a few things together for me.
The treatment of workers by American corporations has been worse — far more treacherous — than most of the population realizes. There was no need for so many men and women to be forced out of their jobs in the downturn known as the great recession.
Many of those workers were cashiered for no reason other than outright greed by corporate managers. And that cruel, irresponsible, shortsighted policy has resulted in widespread human suffering and is doing great harm to the economy.
We are living now in the crowning moment of 30 years of union busting, trickle down economic policy. This not some fluke of fate, not some unfortunate series of events, this is how it was always supposed to be. Because as Bernie Sanders said the other day, we don't live in a democracy, we live in an oligarchy & the vast majority of us are disposable. Businesses are not satisfied any more to be profitable, they have to be more profitable every year than the last to satisfy stock holders. Promises made to long time workers are meaningless because the companies always have the lawyers & resources to grind their employees down & unions are almost nonexistent these days & have been subverted by decades of anti organizing legislation.
The fat cats may be eating the goose that provided them with a steady supply of gold, but they seem to be enjoying the meal. Henry Ford, no commie, at least was able to realize that he'd sell more product if he paid his workers well enough that they could afford to buy one of the cars they made. Not anymore. It's grab all that you can time.
This is the land of the scared, right now & the big money boys are delighted to find that there are people willing to do their jobs & somebody else's for the same pay. They call that productivity & it goes right in their pocket & stays there. Ask them to kick in a little something for the good of the general welfare & they squeal about how unfair it is & threaten to shut down. But before we allow - & you can see it coming - them to buy every mechanism of government, we have maybe, just maybe time to put our feet down & stand up. That or we curl up in a ball & beg & fight each other for the scraps.