Atlantic Monthly Dabbles in Robot/Class Analysis, Basic Income Guarantee

The editors of that bastion of socialism, the Atlantic Monthly, have written a wonderful review of the "productivity miracle," jobloss economy and the possible economic responses to them:

Viewed through the lens of class politics, one of the most striking elements of the past quarter century has been what Gary Burtless, an economist at the Brookings Institution, calls "the slow erosion of bargaining power" among low-income and middle-income workers. Better information technology and more-sophisticated robotics have significantly reduced job opportunities for many types of "routine" laborers, such as factory workers and middle managers, especially as globalized production has allowed U.S. companies to move many jobs—particularly low- and middle-skilled jobs—to countries where wages are lower. Increased global competition and the aggressive expectations of the financial markets (mainly in the form of shareholders demanding increased earnings per share every quarter) have eroded traditional managerial notions of "fairness" in setting wages and benefits and replaced them with a relentless focus on reducing cost; many companies now refuse to pay workers more than their immediate ability to contribute justifies, regardless of how old they are, how long they've worked for the company, or how much they've earned in the past. On top of all this, increased immigration of low-skilled workers since 1970 has disproportionately increased the labor supply at the lower end of the economy, probably depressing wages for less skilled workers...

But there may be ways to help displaced workers without harming the economy. In "Are We Still a Middle-Class Nation?" Michael Lind proposes that the federal government grant equity-market stakes to every citizen, so that all Americans, not just the richest, might draw extra income from investments.

The article goes on to describe how declining access to higher education in the U.S. and the ballooning Bush deficit are destroying our economic future.