I wasn’t aware that it is a trope. And yes, that is exactly what I am arguing. Rewind time four decades, and “fellow American labor hours” were affordable to the middle class, now they are not affordable to even much of the upper middle class. In part this has to do with the increased demand inflicted by the medicalization of life. But fundamentally it is the visible manifestation of the impoverishment of the working class. The most charitable take possible is that this was inevitable once the hangover of our two-decade post-war export hegemony had to be dealt with, so globalism has been a grand compensation in the form of shifting as many goods possible into foreign labor hours.
this is mostly a trope.
the "labor hours" is just people living in bigger homes with more appliances, taking more vacations, etc. and needing far fewer "labor hours."
you're basically arguing that because the cost of labor is up, people are poor and ignoring the substitution effects.
I wasn’t aware that it is a trope. And yes, that is exactly what I am arguing. Rewind time four decades, and “fellow American labor hours” were affordable to the middle class, now they are not affordable to even much of the upper middle class. In part this has to do with the increased demand inflicted by the medicalization of life. But fundamentally it is the visible manifestation of the impoverishment of the working class. The most charitable take possible is that this was inevitable once the hangover of our two-decade post-war export hegemony had to be dealt with, so globalism has been a grand compensation in the form of shifting as many goods possible into foreign labor hours.