Randi Rhodes, a liberal talk show host, has said that the economy was deliberately crashed as a way to drive down the wages of American workers. That might sound like a conspiracy theory, but that's currently happening.
Since there are so many unemployed people, workers are willing to take huge pay cuts. So the person who used to demand $50,000 is now willing to work for $30,000. In many cases employers are laying off mid-level workers and replacing them with fresh college grads, who will work for almost half the pay. In many career fields, wages has been devalued.
Left-wing journalist Naomi Klein describes this practise as the "shock doctrine." She writes about this in her book, "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism." She came up with this theory after reporting on the Iraq war and witnessing how many corporations profited from the chaos left after the war. Klein also writes that since the Iraqi population was still reeling from a lightening-fast war, they were too cowed to protest.
Klein says that interrogators in Iraq also used the same procedure on prisoners. Keep them in state of shock and disorientation so they are more likely to be compliant. The same thing has happened to American workers. We have been pummelled by the near crash of the stock market, terrorism, the crash of the mortgage industry and the housing market, and the failure of several auto companies.
This economic chaos has left the American worker scared, dazed and confused -- essentially in a state of shock. So now desperate workers are willing to work for half the pay and no benefits, or work for nothing at all. And who profits? The corporations because they are getting the same work for half the pay, which means more profits for them.
