1. Myth vs. Reality
Global economic output and productivity have soared since 1971. We are generating more total wealth than at any point in human history.
If the economy keeps expanding, why can’t the average worker afford a home? Bitcoiners blame money printing, but inflation isn’t the primary mechanism that detached wages from productivity.
2. How Workers Used to Get Their Fair Share of Economic Growth
Historically, productivity gains were matched by higher wages and shorter working hours.
Workers got higher wages through strong union bargaining power backed by national political policies.
3. Global Capital vs. Local Labor
The entry of China, Eastern Europe, and India into the global economy added billions of low-cost workers to the market almost overnight. This happend roughly at the same time as the end of Bretton Woods.
Wealthy capital owners became hyper-mobile, while labor remained local.
Employers gained the ultimate bargaining chip: “Accept wage stagnation, or we offshore your job.”
First low-skilled manufacturing went, then high-skilled production, and now, thanks to the internet democratizing information access, remote digital and services labor can be handled globally for a fraction of Western costs.
4. Who Won and Who Lost? (The Numbers)
The Winners: Millions of developing nation workers escaped extreme poverty (though they still receive only a penny of the value they produce).
Global capital captured almost all productivity gains, they are the real winner of our era.
Since 1979, real wages for the bottom 90% of workers grew just 26%, while wages for the top 1% grew 160% (and the top 0.1% skyrocketed over 340%).
Real CEO compensation has grown over 20x faster than average worker pay globally.
The Losers: The Western working and middle classes, whose labor leverage was completely neutralized.
5. Solutions
Level the playing field against low-wage, non-unionized overseas competition, expanding tariffs to cover digital labor and imported services that can be produced domestically. Especially digital services are easy to supply nationally.
Shift the tax burden off of labor and onto capital. Tax corporate profits and capital gains at the same rate as earned income, while drastically lowering income taxes to push real wealth back into workers’ paychecks.
Conclusion
Switching to a Bitcoin standard doesn’t fix a broken labor dynamic. If workers lack the structural leverage to demand their share of economic output, changing the currency won’t magically make housing affordable, it just changes the currency you get out-arbitraged in.
Let me know if you have any thoughts or arguments. I am happy to discuss ideas and willing to change my opinion if better arguments are presented.
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