[coryrc]

Why? Because someone invents a more efficient process, we should increase the wages of ditch diggers?

I believe we should focus on relieving the burden of the massive regulatory state on the poor. I.e. relax zoning and lower regressive taxes.

[Red_Leaves_Flyy]

People digging ditches is a requirement for a functional modern society. When a general strike happens the ditch diggers and their friends will be the ones wielding the power they forgot they had all along. I strongly recommend not looking down upon people who work with their hands. It's very bad decorum, and their shovels are sharp.

[coryrc]

If you think that's going to happen again in the USA, you haven't been paying attention.

Signed, child and grandchild of union workers from Michigan

[mythrwy]

The problem there is they can make cars in Korea.

But they can't dig ditches in Korea and export them to the U.S.

[rdtwo]

Sure they can who do you think is digging ditches in the USA? People with questionable immigration status or criminal record who have no other choices that’s who.

[Red_Leaves_Flyy]

Citation needed. I make a show of getting to know various laborers in my union and what they worry about. Right now they care about class consciousness, wage/HR, healthcare, etc.

[oivey]

The ditch diggers dug the trenches to run internet to your home. Your internet connection has only went up in value/utility, yet the people who dig those trenches now don’t make any more than they did before.

The idea that employees are paid according to their value is entirely wrong. Employees are paid according to the labor market. The price of labor on the market is significantly controlled by supply, not the value to the employer of employing someone. Besides that, employers have much more power in the employment relationship. This is true even in tech. For example, the FAANGs got caught colluding with one another to suppress salaries via secret anti-poaching agreements a few years back.

[coryrc]

They learned to use modern power equipment and make more than minimum wage. We shouldn't be forced to pay more to people who won't switch from using a hand shovel or whatever the modern equivalent is - cash register attendant? When people were "clerks" it paid an okay amount, but should it be paying more than an "okay" amount? Why should their buying power increase? Why should it track the salaries of people who made computers orders of magnitude cheaper and better? The people whose technology made mRNA vaccines possible for everyone to have?