I think that a more drilled down look at the data is needed. As you say looking at "economies" as though they are sort of homogeneous, rather than divided into classes, amongst whom there is inequality is not serious. However, I also think its necessary to look at wages, not just in terms of individual wages, but household incomes. A look at individual hourly wages, and changes in them, misses com[positional effects. When large numbers moved into precarious employment that meant that changes in hourly wages did not properly reflect the fact that large numbers moved from secure jobs that wee well paid to insecure jobs that weren't. The hourly wage rates of the former could rise significantly, but would not change the reality that a large number of workers were no longer employed in them, but in low wage employment.
But, the same applies in reverse. The rise in hourly wages, now, does not properly reflect the fact that many workers have moved into better paid jobs, partly reflected in the fact that the Quits Rate was rising as workers simply moved to better paid jobs, now that tighter labour markets enabled it. The average pay increase for moving jobs has been around 14%. Having lived through the 1950's, and seen something similar in relation to my Dad's employment then, and still applying when I began work in 1970, this looks very familiar. In addition, most people live in households of more than one, ad as employment has risen, those households have more people in work, and worker more hours etc, so household income has risen more than is shown in flat hourly wage data. Its why consumer demand particularly in the US has continually defied economists expectations.
Finally, when looking at this income data, the petty-bourgeoisie, the self employed and small traders are often lumped in with workers. In Britain, and I expect the same is true everywhere, the size of that petty-bourgeoisie has grown by 50%, since he 1980's, reversing a trend that was put in place 200 years ago, and identified by Marx. That petty-bourgeoisie is characterised by its miserable condition, as Lenin noted, often much more impoverished than the average industrial worker. It is amongst that impoverished, but greatly expanded petty-bourgeoisie that the pool in which the populists have swum. In the recent years, as labour shortages have grown, providing the basis for higher wages, no such potential exists for that petty-bourgeoisie, and, on the contrary, in so far as they employ any workers themselves, they see their wages rise, the possibility of employing them reduced and so on. Its amongst that strata that the support for Brexit, and its tearing up of regulations and protections, and support for Trump arises, as also with the petty-bourgeoisie of the Gilets Jaunes in France.
Thanks for the comment Arthur - what fantastic long-term experience you have. Sometimes people think everything's new, when often history repeats itself as farce. I'm sure you're right that looking at the data in more granularity would help. My main point in this short post was simply to point out that economics does indeed influence political behaviour, especially the mounting inequality that we've seen in recent decades.
Thanks Dan, there has to be some compensations for growing older! I agree entirely with the point of your post. In the 1930's, when workers were on the back foot, because new technologies - Fordism - replaced them, and economic growth was sluggish, they also became more politically docile, and the more backward atomised layers were even drawn to fascist/populist ideas. But, during that period, there was also a growth of the petty-bourgeoisie, as workers thrown out of employment tried to make a living, including those that resorted to petty-criminal activity etc.
The same thing happened in the 1980's, though not as dramatically. The fact that in the 1980's, you even had TV series such as Only Fools and Horses, or Minder, based around fringe, dodgy, petty-bourgeois characters, was no coincidence, any less than Harry Enfields "Loadsamoney" character. Its why those petty-bourgeois elements that always made up a numerical majority of Tory Party members and voters, but who never had ideological dominance within it,, from the 1980's onwards, did come to exert dominance over it, including via its outrider, UKIP. The same happened to the Republicans in the US. Just as workers made up a majority of LP members (and other such parties across Europe etc.) but their interests never dominated those parties, so too with the Conservative Party and the petty-bourgeoisie. It reflected the fact that in the post-war period, the long wave expansion up to the mid 70's, accommodated the social-democratic (Buttskellism etc.) alliance of the joint interests of capital and labour, negotiated by professional middle class managers, both in the large scale businesses, in the trades unions, and in the state. Its why, during that period, and particularly its latter part, it was these kinds of technocratic (white heat of technology, corporatist) ideas that rose strongly, for example also seen in the role of the white collar unions such as ASTMS, TASS, and so on.
I grew up in an area where wages were traditionally low. I remember in the 1950's, my Dad, who was an AUEW shop steward, who worked in the maintenance department of a ceramic tile manufacturer, but who had worked before the war in pretty much every Midlands car factory, used to continually complain about it, and about the fact that the local employers always resisted a car factory being brought to the area, because they feared losing workers to it. During that time, he had to always try to convince the other workers not to accept overtime as an alternative to higher hourly rates, but continually failed. In order to make up his wages, he too used to work Saturday mornings, and often at night until after 7 or even up to 9. In the terraced street where we lived, however, as employment rose, many married women started to go out to work, and so, even though wage rates themselves didn't rise massively, household incomes did, and we started to see for the first time, people buying cars, and going away in the Summer for holidays. My Mum didn't work, because as a child I was ill a lot, but by the late 50's, we could afford to rent a TV, and other families bought washing machines, fridges and so on.
It was only in the early 1960's, with unemployment rates around 1-2%, and the ability of workers to move jobs - my Dad, moved to English Electric, then to another small Engineering company, and eventually back to his old job, all bringing increases in his wages - that actual wages started to rise more sharply, what Glyn and Sutcliffe set out in Workers and The Profits Squeeze. But, I also remember what Goldthorpe et al found in their studies, which is that, it was also in those Midland Car factories where wages were the highest in the country that there was also the highest levels of class consciousness, and support for Labour, contrary to the assertions about "Affluent Workers". It was in this same period of rising nominal and real wages in the 1960's, and into the 70's, that Labour returned to government, and the peak of that development of class consciousness, the demands for not just better living standards, but Workers Control, or at least the kind of industrial democracy proposed in the Bullock Report, or in the EU's 5th Draft Company law Directive, came forward.
The problem as I see it once more, is that the rise of the right-wing populists is driven by that huge growth of the petty-bourgeoisie since the 1980's, who comprise more than a third of populations. It is they that have turned out to support Farage, Trump etc., and, as in the early 1960's, social-democratic parties have no real solutions that attract workers to enthuse over them. As I have analysed and written on extensively, also, that is complicated by the fact that, now, the ruling class, much more than before the WWII, is comprised of speculators, not owners of real capital. They have become addicted to speculative capital gains on financial and property assets, and so the social-democratic parties that reflect the interests of that ruling class, have also had to protect those fictitious assets against the kinds of capital losses seen in 2008. To do that requires actually damaging real capital, it means holding back economic growth, and real capital accumulation (as seen with austerity, as well as lockdowns etc.) because, in the current conditions that capital accumulation means higher interest rates, which would crash financial markets, and the paper value of those assets.
That is what is driving the ideas of not only the political parties, but also of the state.
Dan,
I think that a more drilled down look at the data is needed. As you say looking at "economies" as though they are sort of homogeneous, rather than divided into classes, amongst whom there is inequality is not serious. However, I also think its necessary to look at wages, not just in terms of individual wages, but household incomes. A look at individual hourly wages, and changes in them, misses com[positional effects. When large numbers moved into precarious employment that meant that changes in hourly wages did not properly reflect the fact that large numbers moved from secure jobs that wee well paid to insecure jobs that weren't. The hourly wage rates of the former could rise significantly, but would not change the reality that a large number of workers were no longer employed in them, but in low wage employment.
But, the same applies in reverse. The rise in hourly wages, now, does not properly reflect the fact that many workers have moved into better paid jobs, partly reflected in the fact that the Quits Rate was rising as workers simply moved to better paid jobs, now that tighter labour markets enabled it. The average pay increase for moving jobs has been around 14%. Having lived through the 1950's, and seen something similar in relation to my Dad's employment then, and still applying when I began work in 1970, this looks very familiar. In addition, most people live in households of more than one, ad as employment has risen, those households have more people in work, and worker more hours etc, so household income has risen more than is shown in flat hourly wage data. Its why consumer demand particularly in the US has continually defied economists expectations.
Finally, when looking at this income data, the petty-bourgeoisie, the self employed and small traders are often lumped in with workers. In Britain, and I expect the same is true everywhere, the size of that petty-bourgeoisie has grown by 50%, since he 1980's, reversing a trend that was put in place 200 years ago, and identified by Marx. That petty-bourgeoisie is characterised by its miserable condition, as Lenin noted, often much more impoverished than the average industrial worker. It is amongst that impoverished, but greatly expanded petty-bourgeoisie that the pool in which the populists have swum. In the recent years, as labour shortages have grown, providing the basis for higher wages, no such potential exists for that petty-bourgeoisie, and, on the contrary, in so far as they employ any workers themselves, they see their wages rise, the possibility of employing them reduced and so on. Its amongst that strata that the support for Brexit, and its tearing up of regulations and protections, and support for Trump arises, as also with the petty-bourgeoisie of the Gilets Jaunes in France.
Thanks for the comment Arthur - what fantastic long-term experience you have. Sometimes people think everything's new, when often history repeats itself as farce. I'm sure you're right that looking at the data in more granularity would help. My main point in this short post was simply to point out that economics does indeed influence political behaviour, especially the mounting inequality that we've seen in recent decades.
Thanks Dan, there has to be some compensations for growing older! I agree entirely with the point of your post. In the 1930's, when workers were on the back foot, because new technologies - Fordism - replaced them, and economic growth was sluggish, they also became more politically docile, and the more backward atomised layers were even drawn to fascist/populist ideas. But, during that period, there was also a growth of the petty-bourgeoisie, as workers thrown out of employment tried to make a living, including those that resorted to petty-criminal activity etc.
The same thing happened in the 1980's, though not as dramatically. The fact that in the 1980's, you even had TV series such as Only Fools and Horses, or Minder, based around fringe, dodgy, petty-bourgeois characters, was no coincidence, any less than Harry Enfields "Loadsamoney" character. Its why those petty-bourgeois elements that always made up a numerical majority of Tory Party members and voters, but who never had ideological dominance within it,, from the 1980's onwards, did come to exert dominance over it, including via its outrider, UKIP. The same happened to the Republicans in the US. Just as workers made up a majority of LP members (and other such parties across Europe etc.) but their interests never dominated those parties, so too with the Conservative Party and the petty-bourgeoisie. It reflected the fact that in the post-war period, the long wave expansion up to the mid 70's, accommodated the social-democratic (Buttskellism etc.) alliance of the joint interests of capital and labour, negotiated by professional middle class managers, both in the large scale businesses, in the trades unions, and in the state. Its why, during that period, and particularly its latter part, it was these kinds of technocratic (white heat of technology, corporatist) ideas that rose strongly, for example also seen in the role of the white collar unions such as ASTMS, TASS, and so on.
I grew up in an area where wages were traditionally low. I remember in the 1950's, my Dad, who was an AUEW shop steward, who worked in the maintenance department of a ceramic tile manufacturer, but who had worked before the war in pretty much every Midlands car factory, used to continually complain about it, and about the fact that the local employers always resisted a car factory being brought to the area, because they feared losing workers to it. During that time, he had to always try to convince the other workers not to accept overtime as an alternative to higher hourly rates, but continually failed. In order to make up his wages, he too used to work Saturday mornings, and often at night until after 7 or even up to 9. In the terraced street where we lived, however, as employment rose, many married women started to go out to work, and so, even though wage rates themselves didn't rise massively, household incomes did, and we started to see for the first time, people buying cars, and going away in the Summer for holidays. My Mum didn't work, because as a child I was ill a lot, but by the late 50's, we could afford to rent a TV, and other families bought washing machines, fridges and so on.
It was only in the early 1960's, with unemployment rates around 1-2%, and the ability of workers to move jobs - my Dad, moved to English Electric, then to another small Engineering company, and eventually back to his old job, all bringing increases in his wages - that actual wages started to rise more sharply, what Glyn and Sutcliffe set out in Workers and The Profits Squeeze. But, I also remember what Goldthorpe et al found in their studies, which is that, it was also in those Midland Car factories where wages were the highest in the country that there was also the highest levels of class consciousness, and support for Labour, contrary to the assertions about "Affluent Workers". It was in this same period of rising nominal and real wages in the 1960's, and into the 70's, that Labour returned to government, and the peak of that development of class consciousness, the demands for not just better living standards, but Workers Control, or at least the kind of industrial democracy proposed in the Bullock Report, or in the EU's 5th Draft Company law Directive, came forward.
The problem as I see it once more, is that the rise of the right-wing populists is driven by that huge growth of the petty-bourgeoisie since the 1980's, who comprise more than a third of populations. It is they that have turned out to support Farage, Trump etc., and, as in the early 1960's, social-democratic parties have no real solutions that attract workers to enthuse over them. As I have analysed and written on extensively, also, that is complicated by the fact that, now, the ruling class, much more than before the WWII, is comprised of speculators, not owners of real capital. They have become addicted to speculative capital gains on financial and property assets, and so the social-democratic parties that reflect the interests of that ruling class, have also had to protect those fictitious assets against the kinds of capital losses seen in 2008. To do that requires actually damaging real capital, it means holding back economic growth, and real capital accumulation (as seen with austerity, as well as lockdowns etc.) because, in the current conditions that capital accumulation means higher interest rates, which would crash financial markets, and the paper value of those assets.
That is what is driving the ideas of not only the political parties, but also of the state.