It is too easy to forget that when a person is employed at $100k-$200k per year in the Bay Area, you want things like stopping climate change, more parks, more air, fair treatment, and above all, peace and prosperity.
When making $30k with absolutely zero hope of real increases in Atlanta being a warehouse worker for an industry that's disappearing, the same person would burn all those things down, I would have said to get $10k more per year. Today I would say, getting an extra year at $30k is enough to justify the burnings.
We should think a bit more about Maslow's hierarchy. If you can't give people a decent living first, they will revolt if you try to "make them matter" or try to reach these lofty goals. You might think that wage improvements don't matter if we don't fix the climate, but the exact opposite is true.
I'm not making the point that the climate isn't worth saving, racism doesn't need solving if we can't fix poverty and "underemployment". I'm saying that we won't succeed unless we fix that ... first.
Globalism produces beautiful iPads. But global average wage is $2k ... not per month. Per year. If you're average, working in a non-booming industry, and of course most people are exactly that, that is a terrifying prospect. The sad part is ... yes killing globalization will make us all worse off, in terms of the country's GDP. But it will lessen the gap between the 1% and the 99% (note that 2% is $97k per year, and as such anyone working in the Bay Area in IT is likely at least in the top 2%). Of course, mostly by making the 0.1% - 50% a LOT worse off (that's anyone making less than about 2.6 million per year and more than $56k. Even in the Bay Area, that's probably C-level wages).
When making $30k with absolutely zero hope of real increases in Atlanta being a warehouse worker for an industry that's disappearing, the same person would burn all those things down, I would have said to get $10k more per year. Today I would say, getting an extra year at $30k is enough to justify the burnings.
We should think a bit more about Maslow's hierarchy. If you can't give people a decent living first, they will revolt if you try to "make them matter" or try to reach these lofty goals. You might think that wage improvements don't matter if we don't fix the climate, but the exact opposite is true.
I'm not making the point that the climate isn't worth saving, racism doesn't need solving if we can't fix poverty and "underemployment". I'm saying that we won't succeed unless we fix that ... first.
Globalism produces beautiful iPads. But global average wage is $2k ... not per month. Per year. If you're average, working in a non-booming industry, and of course most people are exactly that, that is a terrifying prospect. The sad part is ... yes killing globalization will make us all worse off, in terms of the country's GDP. But it will lessen the gap between the 1% and the 99% (note that 2% is $97k per year, and as such anyone working in the Bay Area in IT is likely at least in the top 2%). Of course, mostly by making the 0.1% - 50% a LOT worse off (that's anyone making less than about 2.6 million per year and more than $56k. Even in the Bay Area, that's probably C-level wages).