MAIN IDEA:

This book’s main idea is that most problems in the USA come from the changes in the power balance between workers and employers. The old balance was based on an expansive goods-producing economy and featured strong unions and the pro-workers Democratic party, which resulted in well-paying jobs and consequently general prosperity. The new balance is based on a service economy divided into a high-tech/managerial economy and a low-tech mainly service economy. The former produces new knowledge, technology, and control over multinational corporations, providing high-paying jobs for the educated part of the population. This part of the population does not need unions because they possess highly marketable knowledge and skills. The latter produces simple services that require little knowledge and skills and therefore pay very little, preventing the uneducated part of the population from having the quality of life typical for the generation of their parents and grandparents. The author sees the solution in the revival of the labor movement via its rejection of one-way subordination to the Democratic party. The more independent labor movement would force political parties to compete for the support of middle and low-skill labor. This, in turn, would result in political actions forcing employers to pay much more for labor than they do now using global arbitrage. The author seems to believe in the real possibility of moving from low low-wage / high-welfare system to a living wage / social insurance system. He correctly notices that it is not possible to move history backward but is so scared of the future that does not see any good alternative:” It could be worse. The emergent national class hierarchy in America may solidify into a neo-feudal system run by a more or less hereditary aristocracy that assigns everyone incomes and rewards based on government-certified identity categories like race and gender or discretionary political patronage. Another possibility is that populist demagogues, some of them perhaps more effective and focused than Donald Trump, will lead ephemeral and disruptive rebellions by the marginalized and dispossessed. Given the nightmarish alternatives of stable oligarchy or demagogue-exploited turmoil, the restoration of worker power in the United States of America is worth a try.”

MY TAKE ON IT:

I think that the author does not completely realize that the very notion of a job and labor is rapidly becoming outdated due to emerging technologies based on AI. It already demonstrates that a great many jobs could be done without human intervention. It would not be possible to go back to the truck drivers’ union if there were no track drivers and all deliveries were made by self-driving cars. And it does not relate only to the jobs of uneducated people. Already the job of a secretary could be seen only in old movies, as well as the job of a travel agent. So, let’s forget about the restoration of labor unions and the non-existent option of going back to the glorious 1950s, which, by the way, did not feel glorious at the time. The real alternatives are:

1. Bureaucratization of everything so everybody does quasi-work, the only meaning of which is to provide people with jobs. It would be a kind of socialism, only materially more comfortable:  without starvation and absence of goods and services. In this system uneducated part of the population would play games, live on minimal basic income, and kill themselves with drugs, alcohol, and similar entertainments. The educated and ambitious part of the population would be busy playing bureaucratic games of mini-thrones intriguing against each other and striving to obtain a higher place in the hierarchy.
2. The other option could be based on the simple fact that people always obtain resources either directly from the environment as the farmers growing food or from a property they own as an owner of a warehouse where this food is stored or from services as grocery store owner converting this food from balk in warehouse into retail quantity in shopping bag. When AI substitutes all labor all three will be fine because the farmer would still own land so he will be paid for what the AI farming machine would produce, and so will the owner of a warehouse for his property. However, none of them will hire any labor whether unionized or not. So, the other option could be based on the fact that information content embedded in all these pieces of property developed over a long time by millions of people and therefore equally belongs to others, If this common inheritance is formally recognized as everybody’s equal and unalienable property and become legal foundation for enforcing payment for its rent from an individual in possession of current material property such as warehouse to somebody who has no material property and historically would make living by selling labor. As long as the amount of payment is defined by the market mechanism of buying and selling rather than some bureaucratic decision, we would have property owners dealing with each other. Such a solution would provide not just resources, but also dignity and mutual respect. In short, the solution to deficiencies of capitalism should be not socialism, but rather turning 100% of the population into capitalists who have property to rent out to each other.