> If a lamplighter could see the world today, he would think the prosperity all around him was unimaginable
None of that shared prosperity was freely given by the Sam Altmans of the world, it was hard won by labor organizers and social movements. Without more of that, the progress from AI will continue the recent trend of wealth accumulating in the hands of a few. The idea that everyone will somehow prosper equally from AI, without specific effort to make that happen, is nonsense.
Places like HK and Singapore had free markets and not much unions and became pretty prosperous, during my lifetime having GDP per capita go from something like a third of the UK to nearly twice it in Singapore in spite of us in the UK having the benefit of unions fighting to keep everyone coal mining and the like.
Labor organizers mostly make things worse for laborers. Capitalism has brought much prosperity. "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest"
Labor unions in America were largely controlled by organized crime and likely still are today. They didn't do this to help the worker they did it as an extension of a collection racket. AKA - their own interests. Despite this they did accomplish some historical good. Yet, I am still working a 40+ hour week bullied by my employer and jobs continue to be shipped overseas. How many more decades before the unions do their job?
You can't continue to give labor unions credit for what they've done in the past as justification for their continued existence. Labor unions are also the reason the police are untouchable even when they commit horrendous crimes. Anecdata, but of the union members I know (who by the way were forced into it lest they be considered a scab) none of them believe the union works for them. These people are in medicine, education, construction, and food. The union rep likely golfs and drinks with the CEO where they agree after "much fighting for your rights" to grant you that 25 cent raise.
Rarely unions do their jobs. During COVID hospitals in my hometown were allowed to bully nurses into dangerous situations as their union would not halt care in order to make sure they had functional N95s. The unions didn't stop the mass exportation of labor to third world nations after the GFC. These things alone are enough for me to say they have outlived their usefulness.
>How many more decades before the unions do their job?
You're ignoring over a hundred years worth of history of the American labor movement being relentlessly battered into the ground by private power and its enormous influence over state and federal government. There hasn't been a real labor movement in the US for a very long time, the percentage of unionized workers in the US is only 10% and most of them work in the public sector.
>Labor unions are also the reason the police are untouchable even when they commit horrendous crimes.
Then why are the states with the highest levels of police violence Republican anti-union states with right-to-work laws and no collective bargaining?
>Anecdata, but
Then why bother typing it?
>Rarely unions do their jobs. During COVID hospitals in my hometown were
Weekends go back at least as far as the Old Testament and god resting on the seventh day. While the first recorded labour strike in the United States was by Philadelphia printers in 1786.
None of that shared prosperity was freely given by the Sam Altmans of the world, it was hard won by labor organizers and social movements. Without more of that, the progress from AI will continue the recent trend of wealth accumulating in the hands of a few. The idea that everyone will somehow prosper equally from AI, without specific effort to make that happen, is nonsense.