Did I ever have my eyes opened on Wednesday: during Morning Edition, Steve Inskeep was interviewing David Wessel ofthe Wall Street Journal about "productivity." I learned that "American workers are among the most productive workers in the world; that's why [our] wages are higher than other workers, and American productivity growth is the envy of the industrial countries around the world." I also learned that "if we are more productive we have more stuff for less effort" and that increasing productivity increases the "standard of living." Finally Steve Inskeep informed me that productivity is "our defense in effect against cheap imports from abroad and low wage workers abroad" and that " as long as we’re more productive we can deserve and earn more money."Golly, and I thought that family incomes were dropping, health care and college costs were outstripping wage increases, and the income gap between rich and poor was fast increasing. It's also odd that I somehow connected US intervention against countries like Nicaragua and Haiti with low-wage impoverished workers abroad. Silly me, I'd better quit thinking so much and get to work--I wouldn't want to be unproductive!
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Sheesh, National Propaganda Radio does it again. "Now back to work, happy proles!" Nothing in the report, I suppose, about how many, many more hours American workers are expected to put in compared to other countries. Remember back when we used to pity Japanese workers for that? Now our office workers, for instance, work more hours, with less days off, than theirs do.
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