It reminds me of something I read recently about the reasons for flat real wages in the US since about 1980. The answer? Monopsonist tech companies.
Monopsony = monopoly on the buy side. These companies are monopoly buyers of workers. While the few at the top, the gun coders and so, get richly rewarded, the majority are paid what the monopsony buyers decide. And they've stiffed workers. So the studies say.
And isn't that ironic? Well, kind of, but more: it’s hypocritical, because the leaders of these same tech companies are — or say they are — the vanguards of leftist Social Justice.
I agree with Brooks. We need to think about more than just money. And I say that as an Apple shareholder, which Brooks eviscerates. Yes, I'm shamed for Apple. And for Facebook. And for Google. Shame on all their houses.
It has to start with shareholders themselves having more of a social conscience and demanding that the companies they invest in consider more than just money. That they consider their workers, the community and the country.
I'm not holding my breath, though.
LATER: I appear to be the only one who likes the article. The 760+ comments are pretty much uniformly hostile to Brooks. Mostly they don’t like the moral equivalence he makes between Left and Right. They tend to think it’s all the Republicans’ fault. And they mostly don’t buy into his comment that “capitalism is a beautiful system”. I’m going to guess though, that none of these has lived in a communist country as I have: China in the seventies.
The Readers Pick mentions Jim Crow laws. But these were instituted by the Democrats not the GOP.
They appear to not like Brooks because he’s a Republican. And Republicans are, you know, bad. Morally bad.
LATER: I appear to be the only one who likes the article. The 760+ comments are pretty much uniformly hostile to Brooks. Mostly they don’t like the moral equivalence he makes between Left and Right. They tend to think it’s all the Republicans’ fault. And they mostly don’t buy into his comment that “capitalism is a beautiful system”. I’m going to guess though, that none of these has lived in a communist country as I have: China in the seventies.
The Readers Pick mentions Jim Crow laws. But these were instituted by the Democrats not the GOP.
They appear to not like Brooks because he’s a Republican. And Republicans are, you know, bad. Morally bad.
/Snip:
.... capitalism needs to be embedded in moral norms and it needs to serve a larger social good. Remoralizing and resocializing the market is the great project of the moment. The crucial question is not: How can we have a good economy? It's: How can we have a good society? How can we have a society in which it's easier to be a good person?Read More...
