Doing a (very lazy) search I couldn't find a similar study for America online - there are several books of which I am familiar (the chief of which that I can think of is Thomas DiLorenzo's "How Capitalism Saved America") that document that the cost of goods in labor hours has fallen considerably beginning in 1880.
Unionization is a visible component of what is (imho) the invisible cause of this change: industrialization itself. To argue that without unions we wouldn't have weekends off seems disingenous to me; working conditions were improving in firms that were and were not unionized before unionization and subsquent union-led legislation. Examining other parts of the world currently that are not unionizing we can see that industrialization brings with it, anywhere and everywhere, a decrease in the Gini coefficient, which means that the distribution of income is more even across societies. It's doubtful that America bucks this trend - Rondo Cameron (in another book, "An Economic History of the World", I think) pointed out that America's estimated Gini coefficient was highest in the years immediately preceding the Civil War, and considerable components of what are perceived as objective journalism have to be taken with a grain of salt. Ida Tarbell, the flayer of Standard Oil, happened to be the sister of a firm that couldn't compete with Standard Oil.
Societies are wealthier due to increased productivity, not due to increased legislation. The reason why I don't earn $3.00 an hour is because I am more productive than I would have been in 1900. Wealthier societies are seen to have trade-offs between amount of income and quality of work done. This, by no means, is caused by unionization but rather by capital accumulation.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2008-01-17 10:25 pm (UTC)Unionization is a visible component of what is (imho) the invisible cause of this change: industrialization itself. To argue that without unions we wouldn't have weekends off seems disingenous to me; working conditions were improving in firms that were and were not unionized before unionization and subsquent union-led legislation. Examining other parts of the world currently that are not unionizing we can see that industrialization brings with it, anywhere and everywhere, a decrease in the Gini coefficient, which means that the distribution of income is more even across societies. It's doubtful that America bucks this trend - Rondo Cameron (in another book, "An Economic History of the World", I think) pointed out that America's estimated Gini coefficient was highest in the years immediately preceding the Civil War, and considerable components of what are perceived as objective journalism have to be taken with a grain of salt. Ida Tarbell, the flayer of Standard Oil, happened to be the sister of a firm that couldn't compete with Standard Oil.
Societies are wealthier due to increased productivity, not due to increased legislation. The reason why I don't earn $3.00 an hour is because I am more productive than I would have been in 1900. Wealthier societies are seen to have trade-offs between amount of income and quality of work done. This, by no means, is caused by unionization but rather by capital accumulation.
I don't support the minimum wage;