Harold Meyerson

How capitalism enriches the few rather than the many

Wed, 02 Apr 2014 18:32:29 +0000

Michael Lewis’s “Flash Boys,” his takedown of high-speed stock trading, may be making headlines this week, but it’s just one of two books on our economic dysfunctions that are flying off the shelves. While “Flash Boys” explains how the fastest-growing form of trading enriches the few at the expense of the many, the other book, Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” provides a more fundamental and disquieting explanation: how capitalism itself enriches the few at the expense of the many.

A local approach to bigger paychecks

Sun, 30 Mar 2014 18:28:42 +0000

Many cities are pricey places to live. Acknowledging that reality, a growing number of cities have adopted higher minimum-wage standards than those set by the federal and state governments. San Francisco is on that list, as are San Jose, Seattle (where efforts are underway to raise the hourly minimum to $15), Washington (and two adjacent Maryland counties), Albuquerque and Santa Fe, N.M. Even in San Diego, no bastion of liberalism, the City Council is moving to put a wage hike before local voters.

The coming job apocalypse

Wed, 26 Mar 2014 18:26:44 +0000

As a general rule, more Americans work than do the citizens of other advanced economies. Since the late 1970s, when the number of women in the workforce ballooned, the share of Americans who either had jobs or were trying to get one was greater than the share of comparable Europeans. For reasons good and bad — the higher availability of jobs, the need to bolster stagnating incomes, the linkage of jobs to health insurance — Americans worked like the dickens.

The Death of an Employer Scam

Tue, 25 Mar 2014 18:24:41 +0000

One of the most pervasive scams that employers use to lower their workers’ wages is misclassification—that is, turning their workers into independent contractors or temps when they are actually employees. Misclassification shouldn’t be mistaken for the whim of an errant employer. On the contrary, it’s a strategy that has been used to transform entire industries.

How to Raise Americans' Wages

Thu, 06 Mar 2014 18:22:20 +0000

Once upon a time in a faraway land—the United States following World War II—workers reaped what they sowed. From 1947 through 1973, their income rose in lockstep with increases in productivity. Their median compensation (wages plus benefits) increased by 95 percent as their productivity increased by 97 percent. Then, abruptly, the rewards for greater productivity started going elsewhere—to shareholders, financiers, and top corporate executives. Today, for the vast majority of American workers, the link between their productivity and their compensation no longer exists.

Russia doesn’t respect borders. Neither has the U.S.

Wed, 05 Mar 2014 19:07:54 +0000

In light of Russia’s military movement into Crimea, it’s a good thing that the United States repudiated the Monroe Doctrine. In 1823, to deter European powers from military or political intervention in the emerging nations of Latin America, President James Monroe announced a policy implying that that region was our sphere of influence, not Europe’s. The United States invoked the Monroe Doctrine, along with the imperatives of the Cold War, to justify some of its own interventions there: in Cuba, Panama, Nicaragua, Chile, Grenada, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela — it’s a long list.

The Left, Viewed from Space

Mon, 03 Mar 2014 18:19:11 +0000

It is, I suppose, theoretically possible to get the big picture right even when you can’t see the small pictures at all. That seems to be the achievement of political scientist Adolph Reed Jr. in his cover story in the March issue of Harper’s.

As Reed sees it, both political parties have been captured by neo-liberalism, by Wall Street, by the cult of laissez-faire. The Democrats have succumbed while maintaining, or even increasing, their liberalism on social and cultural issues, even as the Republicans have moved rightward on those same social issues. More troublingly, as Reed sees it, the American left has acquiesced in the Democrats’ rightward movement, backing a passel of candidates and two presidents—Bill Clinton and Barack Obama—who adhered to the economics of Robert Rubin and his protégés. The Left, says Reed, has always had an excuse: If the Republicans are elected, the world will lurch to the right. Backing Clinton and Obama and the Democrats is a defensive exercise, and a kneejerk defensive exercise at that.

Arizona uses religion as a shield for bigotry

Thu, 27 Feb 2014 18:55:50 +0000

As patriotism can be the last refuge of scoundrels, so religion can be the last refuge of bigots.

The most recent attempts to besmirch religion have come from Arizona’s Republican state legislators, who last week, on a near- party-line vote, passed a bill allowing businesses to discriminate against same-sex couples on religious grounds. The bill is on the desk of Republican Gov. Jan Brewer; she has until week’s end to sign or veto it.

Walking on Ukrainian Eggshells

Mon, 24 Feb 2014 18:51:28 +0000

At times, you have to wonder where Europe’s strategic and economic sense has gone.

Consider Ukraine, most of whose citizens clearly wish to become Ukrainian-European and have their country join the European Union. Some of whose citizens died for that this week.

Share the dividends of increased productivity

Thu, 20 Feb 2014 22:49:02 +0000

The United Auto Workers’ failure to organize the employees at Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., has been greeted with predictable hosannas from the sworn enemies of American unions. Survey their celebratory columns, though, and you won’t find the slightest consideration of most Americans’ primary economic problem: How do workers get a raise in today’s economy? With the rate of unionization so low that even unionized employees have trouble winning good contracts, how can workers profit from the gains in their productivity? What will it take for workers to regain the power to reap what they sow?