https://www.businessinsider.com/labor-shortage-small-businesses-cutting-opening-hours-losing-revenues-employment-2021-10

    • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
      ·
      3 years ago

      I do think that something very strange, very special, and somewhat rare is happening in front of us. Nobody is really organized, and it is not a labor-solidarity movement. It is people acting in their own rational best interests, as economics has always predicted. People are individually coming to their own conclusions that the current conditions are not worth suffering for the wage that is being given. Time will tell whether this movement develops into something or just fizzles out.

      I've had the same vibe. Economists are freaking out about Stagflation all over again. But there's this implicit understanding that turning off the :brrrrrrrrrrrr: won't hurt labor nearly as much as it will fuck the corporate bottom line this time around. So there's no Volker-Era on the horizon, at least until businesses get organized enough to capital-strike Americans back into line.

      And if they do that, and we tank the economy in the shadow of Red China, that really could be it for the American Imperial Project. A nation that is openly hostile to labor cannot survive in an economy that so heavily relies upon skilled workers to keep the engines running.