(See Parts I and II on this topic.) Finished Steve Fraser’s big book, one of them at any rate. I find cultural history a difficult thing to evaluate. Everything is a generalization, subject to argument. Even if you have replicated the author’s monumental catalog of sources, it can be hard to have confidence in endless assertions that do not hinge on simple facts or quantitative data. There is no ambiguity about who won the battle of Gettysburg, but characterizations of the
Les Leopold, a labor educator (not to be confused with Leonard Leo, architect of the right wing takeover of the Supreme Court) argues in his book Runaway Inequality that financialization has been the leading factor driving the divergence since the 1970s of wage growth, which stagnated, from labor productivity and profits, which continued to increase. His statistics indicate that financialization had more impact on that trend than union-busting, automation, or globalization. A key mechanism he cites is the pressure to prioritize quarterly profits over long term investment, therefore to bust unions, outsource jobs, and concentrate ownership within industries.
(mistakenly sent in response to a different post by Max, intended here).
Two tangential comments. I saw Hyman Minsky's name mentioned for the first time (being a stranger to your area) in a review of Seven Crashes: The Economic Crises That Shaped Globalization by Harold James, and The Great Crashes: Lessons from Global Meltdowns and How to Prevent Them by Linda Yueh, in the current NY Review of Books; at https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2024/04/04/the-crash-next-time-seven-crashes-harold-james/. The reviewer was not enthralled.
Second, about options trading. Right out of college, my friend from boyhood was an engineering professor in the NYC area. A few years in, he quit out of boredom, and was earning his living by playing backgammon at parties on the Upper East Side. At one such party, someone suggested that he try options trading, "it's just like backgammon." He raised funds to lease a seat on the AMEX to trade options. He did quite well until NYSE purchased AMEX and ended options trading. His view, informed by his leftism, was that the options traders provided valuable service within the economy, but were grossly overpaid.
Les Leopold, a labor educator (not to be confused with Leonard Leo, architect of the right wing takeover of the Supreme Court) argues in his book Runaway Inequality that financialization has been the leading factor driving the divergence since the 1970s of wage growth, which stagnated, from labor productivity and profits, which continued to increase. His statistics indicate that financialization had more impact on that trend than union-busting, automation, or globalization. A key mechanism he cites is the pressure to prioritize quarterly profits over long term investment, therefore to bust unions, outsource jobs, and concentrate ownership within industries.
(mistakenly sent in response to a different post by Max, intended here).
Two tangential comments. I saw Hyman Minsky's name mentioned for the first time (being a stranger to your area) in a review of Seven Crashes: The Economic Crises That Shaped Globalization by Harold James, and The Great Crashes: Lessons from Global Meltdowns and How to Prevent Them by Linda Yueh, in the current NY Review of Books; at https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2024/04/04/the-crash-next-time-seven-crashes-harold-james/. The reviewer was not enthralled.
Second, about options trading. Right out of college, my friend from boyhood was an engineering professor in the NYC area. A few years in, he quit out of boredom, and was earning his living by playing backgammon at parties on the Upper East Side. At one such party, someone suggested that he try options trading, "it's just like backgammon." He raised funds to lease a seat on the AMEX to trade options. He did quite well until NYSE purchased AMEX and ended options trading. His view, informed by his leftism, was that the options traders provided valuable service within the economy, but were grossly overpaid.