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The labor share of income in the US is at its lowest post-war level

libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org

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Re: The labor share of income in the US is at its lowest post-war level

#91

Post by AlotOfReading »

aeternum wrote: post #34
nimbius wrote: post #14

this is relatively unremarkable for those with an understanding of wage, labor, profit, price and capital. capitalism will always seek to reduce labor cost. during the epoch of neoliberalism it achieved great strides in this by reducing labor power through union busting by both thatcher and reagan in the UK and US respectively. it has also effectively curtailed any increase in the minimum wage for nearly 20 years as…

Marx fails to imagine a world in which labor actually has little to no value. His worldview is primarily that capitalists 'steal' the valuable labor. However it doesn't seem that that is actually the world we are in. Instead the intrinsic value of human labor seems to be slowly trending towards zero. And it kind of makes sense, same has happened with oxen labor, horse labor, etc.

It doesn't seem like the value of human labor is going away. If you look at luxury goods, they're still "handmade". Telecoms still advertise human representatives. Nursing homes still charge massive amounts for personal service.

What's changing is how much of that surplus value is captured by the workers doing the labor.

Re: The labor share of income in the US is at its lowest post-war level

#92

Post by abdullahkhalids »

simianwords wrote: post #26
nimbius wrote: post #14

this is relatively unremarkable for those with an understanding of wage, labor, profit, price and capital. capitalism will always seek to reduce labor cost. during the epoch of neoliberalism it achieved great strides in this by reducing labor power through union busting by both thatcher and reagan in the UK and US respectively. it has also effectively curtailed any increase in the minimum wage for nearly 20 years as…

[flagged]

> Workers enjoy highest living standards of any time in history.

It's entirely possible for someone to be paid a lot in absolute terms, while at the same time paid very little relative to the value that they produce which is monetarily captured by their organization. The truth of the first does not invalidate the injustice of the second.

Re: The labor share of income in the US is at its lowest post-war level

#93

Post by saghm »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #49
Schiendelman wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cases you're talking about are all delaying taxation, not eliminating it. Eventually someone has to draw that wealth - the foundation has to spend for public benefit to be eligible for 501(c)3 status, for instance.

How Elon Musk's secretive foundation hands out his billions - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/23/how-elon-... - January 23rd, 2019 "Spending for the public benefit" has a lot of latitude.

I also don't think they addressed how borrowing against the wealth doesn't require any immediate taxes (and is often low interest, given how being a billionare means you get more favorable terms). There's nothing stopping someone in that position from just deferring taxes on the money they currently have, borrowing against it, and then investing that to turn into more money with taxes deferred even further so that they can use the proceeds to pay the previous deferred taxes and keep the difference.

Re: The labor share of income in the US is at its lowest post-war level

#94

Post by wqaatwt »

tokai wrote: post #74
jcfrei wrote: post #60

I think this is part of a long term development where technology and globalization slowly erode workers bargaining power. Basically you only build a factory in the US if you can keep labour costs low enough and the manufacturing automated enough so that you can still compete with other manufacturing hubs.

Other countries in the world have manage to keep workers bargaining power in the face of globalization and technological progress. I think in the case of US literally killing workers and union people is a huge part of why US workers lack power and why US unions are so impotent.[0] [0] see Battle of Blair Mountain and what work Pinkerton mainly did from its founding to WW2, as examples.

> Other countries in the world have manage to keep workers bargaining power

Such as? They might have managed to maintain it for privileged subgroups of the workforce but not for the average worker.

Re: The labor share of income in the US is at its lowest post-war level

#95

Post by to11mtm »

imightbebatman wrote: post #58
balozi wrote: post #31

For what its worth Ross Perot had an ominous take on the effects of free trade back in the 90s with his "giant sucking sound" observation.

The root of this started in the 70s as the New Deal coalition decayed and Keynesian economic theory fell out of favor among the elites. To be fair their were good reasons at the time to think it wasn't working either.

Worth noting that the Bretton Woods system was -not- quite what Keynes wanted...

Re: The labor share of income in the US is at its lowest post-war level

#96

Post by elhudy »

afavour wrote: post #62
nradov wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not necessarily opposed to a single-payer system but the margin that for-profit insurance companies take is a tiny fraction of overall healthcare spending. You could zero it out and it would barely move the needle. And many of the largest commercial health plans such as most Blue Cross Blue Shield Association members are non-profit. There is literally no margin. Provider organizations spend a huge amount of effor…

I don't think the core issue is the health insurance companies stealing money, it's the deep inefficiencies that come from the position the insurance companies hold. How many man-hours are spent dealing with insurance paperwork? How much do hospitals and doctors spend each year just dealing with that interaction, rather than treating patients? > Plus they have enormous problems with fraud, waste, and abuse. I'd say "…

>I'd say "enormous" requires some evidentiary proof. Obviously there is fraud and waste. But almost all large scale systems have that. We should certainly try to minimize it wherever we can but I don't think "waste and fraud exist" are a reason to not pursue a path.

Are you living in the same country as the rest of us? There is plentiful evidence of the enormous fraud and waste. It’s not even a point of debate anymore.

Re: The labor share of income in the US is at its lowest post-war level

#97

Post by colechristensen »

legitster wrote: post #61

People are misreading the conclusion - the Covid related drop is normal and matches previous episodes, but the massive overall drop since 2000 is not. The situation on the ground is unchanged - the amount of labor being generated per person has not really changed, but the overall pie has grown massively around us.

It's just rent.

Rent for the homes we live in (including "rent" as mortgage payments to the bank)

Rent passed through as costs to the consumer for the businesses we patronize.

We're stuck at home more affording to be able to do less so the people who own don't have to work.

Re: The labor share of income in the US is at its lowest post-war level

#98

Post by imightbebatman »

to11mtm wrote: post #95
imightbebatman wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The root of this started in the 70s as the New Deal coalition decayed and Keynesian economic theory fell out of favor among the elites. To be fair their were good reasons at the time to think it wasn't working either.

Worth noting that the Bretton Woods system was -not- quite what Keynes wanted...

No, yea that's fair. I think he'd be even more confounded about the current state of affairs though. Just my read.

Re: The labor share of income in the US is at its lowest post-war level

#99

Post by saghm »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #82
hash872 wrote: post #29

I don't have time for a longer comment, but AIUI this is mostly a statistical illusion caused by changes to US tax law- previously income that was attributed to 'labor' shifted over to LLCs/S corps for more beneficial tax rates. The doctor, lawyer, financial advisor, CPA etc. that in past decades would have had his/her income run through a W2 arrangement shifted to becoming a one-person corporation

Do you have any evidence for this, at all?

They seem to conveniently not have enough time to provide that in the comment

Re: The labor share of income in the US is at its lowest post-war level

#100

Post by galleywest200 »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #69
rglover wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It transitions back to a more feudalist state. The series finale to "you will own nothing and be happy." That is, if they're successful .

Is there any reason to believe they won't be?

The sheer number of people who would have nothing left to lose would probably fight back, literally, at that point.
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