- Mar 11, 2015
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Since 1980, American businesses have needlessly sent jobs out of this country. Everybody’s hero, Reagan, implemented a government business philosophy of laissez-faire economics that has cost the workers of this nation millions of jobs. “Unqualified” blacks, Asians, illegal immigrants from the southern border, or whoever else was blamed had nothing to do with taking jobs from the white working class. CEOS and corporate owners sent those jobs away. Their pockets got fat while race baiting white working-class citizens into a victim mentality.
"Since the beginning of the 1980s, employment relations in U.S. industrial corporations have undergone three major structural changes—which I summarize as rationalization, marketization, and globalization—that have permanently eliminated middle-class jobs. From the early 1980s, rationalization, characterized by plant closings, eliminated the jobs of unionized blue-collar workers. From the early 1990s, marketization, characterized by the end of a career with one company as an employment norm, placed the job security of middle-aged and older white-collar workers in jeopardy. From the early 2000s, globalization, characterized by the movement of employment offshore, left all members of the U.S. labor force, even those with advanced educational credentials and substantial work experience, vulnerable to displacement."
The quote was from a paper titled “The Financialization of the U.S. Corporation: What Has Been Lost, and How It Can Be Regained,” by William Lazonick. In this paper, he describes the forces that created the changes in American business that are the causes for the current weakened state of the American worker. Beginning in 1980, he says America went through a phase where factories began closing. These closings started the end of good-paying union jobs that allowed workers to raise families and live in relative middle-class comfort. The appearance of Windows and PCs around 1990 helped begin a phase in American business that ended the one job career for white-collar workers.
As the new century arrived, so did a new business strategy. In 2000, America outsourced even more jobs to lower-wage paying countries eliminating more jobs formerly held by Americans.9 American business strategy shifted from using profits to create jobs to match the changes caused by progress as was done in the past and focused on increasing the return on shareholder investments. According to Lazonick, this was based on “agency theory,” a theory with the premise that only shareholders have a stake in the distribution of corporate profits because they invest the money. The implementation of agency theory into practice appears to have left out one crucial aspect in the corporate equation: the value of the worker’s time.
"Once U.S. corporations adopted these structural changes in employment, however, they often pursued these employment strategies purely for financial gain. Some companies closed manufacturing plants, terminated experienced (and generally more expensive) workers, and offshored production to low-wage areas of the world simply to increase profits, often at the expense of the companies’ long-term competitive capabilities and without regard for displaced employees’ long years of service. Moreover, as these changes became embedded in the structure of U.S. employment, business corporations failed to invest in new, higher value-added job creation on a sufficient scale to provide a foundation for equitable and stable growth in the U.S. economy.”
The corporate heads didn’t give a damn about the working-class white person. While working-class whites lost jobs, executives and wealthy shareholders made money. While working-class whites were increasingly becoming members of food lines, executives and business owners were increasing their memberships in exclusive private clubs. While white working-class people were losing their homes, rich white men like president number 45 purchased the properties they lost. The white working class was getting played while wealthy CEOs were paid exorbitant incomes from stock options included in their compensation. Corporations were buying back billions of dollars worth of stocks while claiming that blacks, Japanese, illegals from the south, or the Chinese were taking jobs from “real Americans.” Like marks manipulated by con men, working-class whites fell for the race-baiting and began electing people who would move more jobs away.
Source: Get Your Knee Off Our Necks- pgs 382-385.
"Since the beginning of the 1980s, employment relations in U.S. industrial corporations have undergone three major structural changes—which I summarize as rationalization, marketization, and globalization—that have permanently eliminated middle-class jobs. From the early 1980s, rationalization, characterized by plant closings, eliminated the jobs of unionized blue-collar workers. From the early 1990s, marketization, characterized by the end of a career with one company as an employment norm, placed the job security of middle-aged and older white-collar workers in jeopardy. From the early 2000s, globalization, characterized by the movement of employment offshore, left all members of the U.S. labor force, even those with advanced educational credentials and substantial work experience, vulnerable to displacement."
The quote was from a paper titled “The Financialization of the U.S. Corporation: What Has Been Lost, and How It Can Be Regained,” by William Lazonick. In this paper, he describes the forces that created the changes in American business that are the causes for the current weakened state of the American worker. Beginning in 1980, he says America went through a phase where factories began closing. These closings started the end of good-paying union jobs that allowed workers to raise families and live in relative middle-class comfort. The appearance of Windows and PCs around 1990 helped begin a phase in American business that ended the one job career for white-collar workers.
As the new century arrived, so did a new business strategy. In 2000, America outsourced even more jobs to lower-wage paying countries eliminating more jobs formerly held by Americans.9 American business strategy shifted from using profits to create jobs to match the changes caused by progress as was done in the past and focused on increasing the return on shareholder investments. According to Lazonick, this was based on “agency theory,” a theory with the premise that only shareholders have a stake in the distribution of corporate profits because they invest the money. The implementation of agency theory into practice appears to have left out one crucial aspect in the corporate equation: the value of the worker’s time.
"Once U.S. corporations adopted these structural changes in employment, however, they often pursued these employment strategies purely for financial gain. Some companies closed manufacturing plants, terminated experienced (and generally more expensive) workers, and offshored production to low-wage areas of the world simply to increase profits, often at the expense of the companies’ long-term competitive capabilities and without regard for displaced employees’ long years of service. Moreover, as these changes became embedded in the structure of U.S. employment, business corporations failed to invest in new, higher value-added job creation on a sufficient scale to provide a foundation for equitable and stable growth in the U.S. economy.”
The corporate heads didn’t give a damn about the working-class white person. While working-class whites lost jobs, executives and wealthy shareholders made money. While working-class whites were increasingly becoming members of food lines, executives and business owners were increasing their memberships in exclusive private clubs. While white working-class people were losing their homes, rich white men like president number 45 purchased the properties they lost. The white working class was getting played while wealthy CEOs were paid exorbitant incomes from stock options included in their compensation. Corporations were buying back billions of dollars worth of stocks while claiming that blacks, Japanese, illegals from the south, or the Chinese were taking jobs from “real Americans.” Like marks manipulated by con men, working-class whites fell for the race-baiting and began electing people who would move more jobs away.
Source: Get Your Knee Off Our Necks- pgs 382-385.
