Labor's share of wealth lowest ever

Source: U.S. Department of Labor

People who produce the wealth in this country deserve their fair share of it. They're not getting it.

Talking Points Memo today featured the chart at left, which shows workers' share of national income since 1947. Not. A. Pretty. Picture.

Things are looking better for machines. The New York Times reported last week that companies increased spending on technology by 26 percent, on workers by 2 percent. Reports the Times,

Two years into the recovery, hiring is still painfully slow. The economy is producing as much as it was before the downturn, but with seven million fewer jobs. Since the recovery began, businesses’ spending on employees has grown 2 percent as equipment and software spending has swelled 26 percent, according to the Commerce Department. A capital rebound that sharp and a labor rebound that slow have been recorded only once before — after the 1982 recession.

Workers aren't the only ones alarmed by this trend. The Zero Hedge blog, which is comprised of financial writers who can hardly be called socialists, cautions that labor's declining share of wealth will lead to "instability."

Zero Hedge writs,

...not only does the US already have the core elements, should one be so inclined, to provoke a (rather active) anti-fascist movement based on some interpretations of pro-corporatists policies adopted by the administration, but should another be so inclined, the country also has the groundwork in place for another neo-Marxist revolution: just take this chart, add some slogans, mix, and simmer. And who will be the natural enemy? Why only look at the great October revolution in Russia for ideas...

Yup.