Why have all of the inventions and efficiencies of our modern world not translated into better working conditions, better salaries, and happier lives for the common man?

SolitaryRoad.com

Website owner:  James Miller

[ Home ] [ Up ] [ Info ] [ Mail ]

Q. In our modern world of all kinds of efficiencies due to inventions such as tractors (instead of horses), big mechanized farm equipment, genetically improved seed, robots, computers, radio, television, telephones, airplanes, automobiles, etc. why has all of these inventions and efficiencies not translated into better working conditions, better salaries, and better lives for the common man? Why so much stress, worry, and anxiety in our modern world?

In a free enterprise system it is only natural for a businessman to attempt to hire workers at the lowest possible wage. If he is hiring for some labor niche (i.e. speciality) in which there is a shortage of labor he will pay whatever he has to pay to hire someone. If he is hiring for some labor category in which there is an abundance of labor, as is often the case for unskilled labor, he will pay no more than he has to i.e. he will pay them as little as he can get away with. The incentive to keep labor costs down is either simply that of maximizing profit or the desire to successfully compete in the market place. His primary interest is not the good of the individual, it is his own good. His incentives are necessarily selfish. That is just the way the private enterprise (capitalistic) system works. In this world that we live in everyone acts in his own best interest and the businessman acts in his own best interest.

All of this tends to pull many poorer, unskilled people down to a basic hard stressful life. In addition it creates a situation of basic insecurity for everyone. For everyone is in danger of losing his job at any time for some reason, whether because of the business going bankrupt, or because it is merging with another business, or some other reason. He faces the possibility of finding himself jobless, possibly in later life when he is in his 40's or 50's, and jobs become difficult to find. There exists potential for personal trauma. One would like some system that provided a good, well-paid, stress-free and secure life for everyone but how do you devise such a system? There are countries with socialist type governments but there are usually drawbacks, costs. I would love to think of an alternative to the harsh, dog-eat-dog capitalistic system. That is what is behind my ideas on self-sufficient country living. See Self-sufficient Country Living. A hundred years ago most people lived out in the country more or less self-sufficiently on farms.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Question. What caused the rust belt in the USA?

Answer. AI Overview. Google

The U.S. Rust Belt—stretching across the Midwest and Northeast—declined due to globalization, automation, and cheaper labor in the Sun Belt.

High wages, outdated factories, and foreign competition caused major factory closures. This led to massive job losses, abandoned steel mills, and urban decay starting in the 1970s.

Here are the four main reasons the Rust Belt lost its manufacturing dominance:

● Globalization and Foreign Competition: After World War II, the U.S. faced little global competition. By the 1970s, countries like Japan and Germany rebuilt their factories with modern, efficient technology. They began producing cheaper, high-quality steel and automobiles, stealing market share from U.S. companies.

● Offshoring and Cheaper Labor: To cut costs, many American companies moved their manufacturing operations overseas, particularly to East Asia and Latin America, where labor was much cheaper and regulations were looser.

● The Rise of the Sun Belt: Many factories moved from the Midwest to the southern U.S. (the Sun Belt). States in the South had lower taxes, cheaper land, and weaker labor unions. The invention of air conditioning also made the southern heat bearable, driving a massive migration of both jobs and people out of the Rust Belt.

● Automation: New technologies and robotics allowed factories to produce more goods with fewer human workers. While production levels remained high in many areas, the number of blue-collar jobs plummeted.

To understand how this affected a real-world city, take Detroit, Michigan. In its prime, Detroit was the wealthy heart of the American auto industry. When car companies started building factories overseas and in the American South, Detroit lost hundreds of thousands of jobs. The tax base shrank, businesses closed, and many iconic factory buildings were left empty and rusting.

_____________________________________________________________________________

All of this is about the machinery and working of the free enterprise system. What caused so many manufacturers from our Midwest to move to China? Answer. Huge pools of very cheap (but educated) labor, weak labor laws, and weaker environmental laws in China. Americans were thus put into competition with Chinese people who were willing to work for far lower wages than Americans.

Capitalists in this world work for their own interest. But the vast majority of people in this world are not capitalists. They are simply poor people who need jobs in order to live (i.e. pay for food and a place to live). One can argue that society’s main concern should be what system is best for the common man, not the capitalist, for the vast majority of people are common people and not capitalists. However, the relationship between capitalists and the common man is a symbiotic one in which each needs the other. The common man needs the capitalist because of the jobs he offers and the products he makes. And the capitalist needs the common man for two reasons: 1. The labor he provides. 2. As a purchaser for the goods the he manufactures. (Without someone to buy the manufactured goods the capitalist would go out of business.)

One can ask, “Is there a better system that would serve the common man better?” If so, what is it? Communism has been tried and doesn’t work.

Government jobs. Let us now consider something more. The above analysis applies to jobs in the private sector of the economy. What about government jobs? Do the same mechanisms apply here? No. Because the salaries from government jobs (federal, state, or local) don’t come out of profits. They come from money obtained from taxation of the citizenry, money arbitrarily taken from the citizenry — and the citizenry usually have little power to restrict how much is taken from them. Thus governments can provide very good salaries and very good benefits with few concerns about keeping expenses down, few concerns about efficiency. Indeed government bureaucracies are often very inefficient. Management may be very incompetent or muddled, workers may be sitting around without direction and with nothing to do. Workers are not likely to complain when they are idle and managers are not likely to quit if they are unable to provide direction. And in this case there is not some measure (like amount of profit) to indicate that problems exist in the organization. As a consequence government agencies tend to be known for their inefficiencies (which are there but unseen by the public). The government squanders vast sums of money (trillions upon trillions) on foolish wars and foolish government programs and the inefficiencies in the government offices are likely trivial in comparison.

For more on this topic see, Why have all of the efficiencies resulting from modern invention and technology not given a better life for everyone?

15 July 2026