"It's time to train people not to do the jobs of the past, but to do the great jobs of the future. This is the new model where you work in these kinds of plants for the rest of your life and your kids work here and your grandkids work here. We let the auto plants go overseas." (our emphasis) -- Trump's Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, in an interview on CNBC yesterday, briefly describing his vision of a "new" labor paradigm, very much like a dystopian 19th Century paradigm of people working in the same factories generation after generation. Luckily for them, oligarch billionaire Lutnick has a better plan for own children, and though it doesn't involve factory work, it does involve continuity:
No DEI there! Just true merit-based careers that they can pass on to their children, too!
Hereditary wealth is aristocracy without the titles.
ReplyDeleteOddly enough the pattern of familys geenerations working at same plant existed before the business heros such as chainsaw al and the destruction of the US industrial base was gutted in the name of greater profits from selling businesses instead of products. Addled ronnie raygun absolutely adored those who off shored for greater profits. Added to the discarding of any corporate responsibilities to workers. About the same time that politicions started talking more about "consumers" thn "producers"
ReplyDeleteSt Peter doncha' call me cuz I cain't go,
ReplyDeleteI owe my soul to the company stow ...
I was born in a company town, Gilchrest Oregon, almost seventy years ago to the day. Fond memories I have: mill whistle in the morning, fog on the mill pond, the smell of fresh sawn pine; but when I reflect it was actually an almost great example of union socialism. Except for Mr Gilchrest making millions off those living in his town ...