Dear Steve:
I couldn't agree more and of course it is not only immigrants but the
massive entry into the labour force of women - not that women shouldn't work
but that, in a large number of cases they didn't work in the 50's and 60's
but were - in many cases - forced into work in the 70's by the deliberate
sabotage of wages which made the one income family obsolete in most cases
for a middle class lifestyle. These people wanted the best for their
children and made the necessary adjustments in their family life to provide
income, often at the very expense of that family life. Penny wise and pound
foolish perhaps as we look at the social dysfunctions in our society.
Respectfully
Thomas Lunde
----------
>From: Steve Kurtz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: Re: Created Unequal by James Galbraith
>Date: Sun, May 30, 1999, 9:46 PM
>
> Hi Thomas & all,
>
> Thanks for the clear, informative review. I've interacted with JG, and
> he has shied away from my questions about the impact of the sharp rise
> in the size of the labor force since WWII. I'm *not* disputing any of
> the factors described in the review; I'm suggesting that at the same
> time that technology and globalization have empowered capital and
> entrepreneurship at the expense of labor, the sharp rise in population
> has added to the woes of the lower and middle classes. Demand for
> housing and services rise, while wages are supressed.
>
> Policy and values don't operate in a vacuum. Industries desire for a
> passive, compliant labor supply has resulted in a continual high level
> of immigrants. In the US, this has finally been grasped by many in the
> African American, Latino, and other minority communities. Their wages
> and opportunities for self-improvement are directly impacted by
> immigration policy. Of course much of the migration pressure stems from
> global overpopulation. But numbers are a factor in wellbeing in North
> America nonetheless. Consider also the recent explosion of sprawl
> articles and discussions.
>
> Cheers,
> Steve
>
> (excerpt from TL)
>> All of these changes had the effect of breaking down
>> the structures of solidarity that had held the American middle class
>> together for the first quarter-century after the end of World War II.
>>
>> The new instability of macroeconomics gave a powoerful boost to investment
>> and techology, both in absolute terms and as compared with consumption.
>> With each recession, waves of older factories disappeared. With them went
>> the hard-won, high-paying jobs of the traditional blue-collar workforce.
>> But with each recovery, firms faced an imperative to replace lost capacity,
>> and to do it in the most cost-saving, labor-saving, technologically advanced
>> way available at that moment in time. Waves of layoffs were followed by
>> waves of investment. But the new investments were never designed to relieve
>> the distress of the previously unemployed. They were designed instead to
>> substitutue entirely for them, and this they accomplished.
>>
>> At the same time, incomes policies were abandoned. The idea that all
>> society should benefit equally from national productivity gains was replaced
>> by an ideology of the market, in which winner-take-all and the
>> devil-the-hindmost. Minimum wages were allowed to fall in real terms;
>> safety net social expenditures came under assault. There began a cult of
>> the entrpreneur,
>
