Labor

There was an interesting op-ed piece in the New York Times talking about how Henry Ford, followed by most of American industry, considered labor a stakeholder in their enterprise and felt an obligation to pay them a large enough salary to help them be good consumers.  This was a change from the robber baron mentality that preceded Ford and which we have now returned to.

Labor is simply an expense and an asset that has to be acquired as cheaply as possible.  Corporate obligations are only to the shareholders and maximising profit the only mantra.  Of course many companies like to say that their employees are their greates asset, and they most likely are, but they want that asset cheap.

There is a trend that develops in all societies that leads to a separation between wealthy people and everyone else.  As F. Scott Fitzgeral noted in the Great Gatsby, the wealthy are not like you and me.  They feel entitled and believe that they earned there place, even if that was an inherited place.

I recently read a quote from an heiress in Australia who opined that poor people should drink less beer and work harder.  Since she had inherited something like $30 billion dollars, it is unlikely that she ever really worked a day in her life or tried to find a job.  She probably doesn't drink beer, by choice and outside of being incredible insensitive (see Marie Antoinette) may actually mean well or believe that everyone can become rich if they justj work at it.

This being labor day, it would be nice to see a debate about how we treat labor in the future.  The Op-Ed piece points out that in Germany labor occupies a much higher rung of society than in this country and they remain both competitive and prosperous.