[zozbot234]

I'm puzzled by this comment. You're seemingly trying to explain a secular trend sweeping across the Western world by pointing to a single short-term event that occurred in the U.S. and was but tangentially related to what's actually going on (returns to highly skilled labor have been going up, not down as we might expect from union busting activity!) That doesn't really make much sense, tbh.

[PicassoCTs]

The causal event for that was the discovery that the USSR was a hollow giant and the red scare not based in reality. After that communism lost alot of its fear-factor and a take-over was becoming ever more unlikely.

[AnimalMuppet]

Wow, that is not the way I remember 1979...

[PicassoCTs]

Time to hit the history books. 1980s the fear propaganda was still strong, but the three letter agencies had enough material to pass judgment on the USSR.

Example: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1240452

The USSR bought grain when its harvests failed during the 1970s - this is not the action of a superior system about to surpass you and replace you.

[AnimalMuppet]

The three letter agencies may have known better, but they weren't setting wages for the country. And, as you said, "the fear propaganda was still strong". So I don't think your position can logically work if 1979 is the year things started to change for wages.