Paul Krugman's column in today's New York Times makes the case that we can't turn the economy around and save the middle class simply through promoting higher education.
Advances in technology and telecommunications--and globalization--are threatening white collar jobs just as much as manufacturing and low-skilled jobs:
"...the notion that putting more kids through college can restore the middle-class society we used to have is wishful thinking. It’s no longer true that having a college degree guarantees that you’ll get a good job, and it’s becoming less true with each passing decade.
His solutions are right on the money--restore bargaining rights like the ones that Wisconsin workers are currently fighting for, and "guarantee the essentials." This last part can be expanded to include a policy solution that the Left has seemingly forgotten but needs to resurrect in order to deal with a global 21st Century economy that is only working for the rich and powerful.
Krugman lays out a solution that makes sense:
So if we want a society of broadly shared prosperity, education isn’t the answer — we’ll have to go about building that society directly. We need to restore the bargaining power that labor has lost over the last 30 years, so that ordinary workers as well as superstars have the power to bargain for good wages. We need to guarantee the essentials, above all health care, to every citizen.
Restoring bargaining power to workers is the first and most important thing we can do to rebuild the middle class. Workers need the strength to turn their low-road, low-wage service sector jobs into good middle class jobs.
Manufacturing jobs weren't always good jobs. They used to be the worst jobs, with horrible conditions, 12 hour days, child labor--until the workers formed unions and held sit-down strikes and fought for a better life.
Right now, the rules are stacked against low-wage service workers who try to form a union. Their employers--from Walmart to Wendy's, from Target to Taco Bell--hire high-priced consultants to come in and run an anti-union campaign that includes one-on-one meetings with their supervisors and large captive-audience meetings where bosses "strongly urge" their employees to vote against the union.
Low-wage workers are systematically intimidated, bullied, and brainwashed by an intense anti-union campaign that unions can't compete with. Pro-union workers are routinely fired or have their hours reduced to serve as an example to the other workers of what happens when you try to unite.
We need new, fair labor laws that allow workers to join together free from fear and intimidation.
We also need to make progress on "guaranteeing the essentials." Some progress was made in guaranteeing health care coverage, but more needs to be done to truly use our strength in numbers to bring down costs and bring down the profits of the insurance companies and health care corporations.
In addition to healthcare, there's something else that we used to get from our employers that we need to start having the government guarantee: income.
Krugman's column highlights how technology is leading to the elimination of lots of good white collar jogs. But this job elimination is coming at a time when we've already lost 8 million jobs to the recession and after three decades of losing good jobs to technology and globalization. We need to face the facts: there aren't enough jobs to go around and there never were: and yet we have an economy where we are all dependent on these jobs for our livelihoods.
In the long run, we need to guarantee a minimal amount of income as a human right for all. A basic income that's just above the poverty line--about $10,000 a year for an individual--would provide working people with an independent income that, along with guaranteed health insurance, would lessen the need for full-time jobs for everyone.
A basic income would stimulate the economy from the bottom up--Rise Up Economicsinstead of the decades of Trickle Down Economics we've suffered through. We bailed out the banks and the auto industry and the Fed keeps pumping more money into the economy--but none of it has trickled down to the rest of us.
A simple policy of taxing the rich and their wealth and the big corporations and their profits and cutting down on defense spending and corporate welfare would free up enough money to provide essential income to working people. A Trust Fund for Working Families could be set up, that workers pay into for 5 years before becoming eligible, but is mostly funded by taxes on wealth.
By fixing our labor laws and guaranteeing health care and a minimal income, we can adapt to the global economy and ensure economic security for all.
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