Anti Wage-Slavery, Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 896-898

…what is arguably the nation’s biggest challenge: breaking out of a decade of income stagnation that has afflicted the middle class and the poor and exacerbated inequality.

Many of the bedrock assumptions of American culture — about work, progress, fairness and optimism — are being shaken as successive generations worry about the prospect of declining living standards.
...
The biggest causes, according to interviews with economists over the last several months, are not the issues that dominate the political debate.

At the top of the list are the digital revolution, which has allowed machines to replace many forms of human labor, and the modern wave of globalization, which has allowed millions of low-wage workers around the world to begin competing with Americans.
Standard of Living Is in the Shadows as Election Issue
By DAVID LEONHARDT
New York Times
Published: October 23, 2012
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“There’s this idea that we can somehow rely on entrepreneurship to get us out of the job crisis,” said Scott Shane, an economics professor at Case Western Reserve University. “That’s getting harder and harder, considering there are fewer and fewer of them, and they’re each employing fewer people.”

The decrease in start-up size is probably driven by some combination of technology, changes in management philosophy and tighter financing.
When Job-Creation Engines Stop at Just One
By CATHERINE RAMPELL
New York Times
Published: October 4, 2012
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As Benjamin Franklin might have repeated, against those who deny climatic disruptions staring us in the face, "We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid." How hard must we work to find alternatives to the folly of glorying counter-productive, life-taking hard work -- that destroys rather than serves life?
Why the Protestant Work Ethic Is a Menace to Society
By Robert S. Becker
AlterNet
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