But I think the deeper problem is that the 19th century idea of 'workers' and 'bosses' is simply out-dated now, as are the politics that go with it.

To an extent that's true, of course. One of the great advantages held by corporate leadership today is that they have managed to fragment their employees by employing self-administering teams, creating a layer of sub-leaders who are both boss and worker and specialising tasks to the extent that it's hard to figure out who your 'colleague' is.

Nevertheless I think that it has been amply demonstrated here and elsewhere that the fundamental conflict of interest between the haves and the have-nots still exists, and still very much revolves around wages and working conditions (I include working conditions, because one of the ways to lower wage costs is to pay a very reasonable wage, but demand continually increased productivity - increasing efficiency, as it's called in newspeak, so that you need fewer employees).

An interesting aside is that the fragmentation into self-governing teams and project-oriented working schemes in which the individual employee/team is responsible for his/her/their own project and deadlines can be seen as a way of sneaking piece-rate pay in through the back door - another feature of the Bad Old Days before effective labour unions.

It's much easier to retool the economy along organic lines which make the old problems irrelevant than to engage in another century of confrontational smash and struggle.

I beg to differ.

If we want to bring the trans-nats under control (which I assume we do), we need trans-national tools with which to do it. Since a global government is not in sight, the only tool I can see is to hurt them where they feel it: On their bottom lines. Organised labour is a very effective way of creating leverage in that respect. If you have a less confrontational way of doing it, I'm all ears, but looking at the world today, it very much looks to me like the countries with the strongest labour unions are the countries with the strongest protections for the little guy.

- Jake

Ceterum censeo Chicago esse delendam