it's not really that we've dropped the connection between wages and productivity. it's more as though the new right economic paradigm argues that the market will determine how productivity should be awarded on it's own and that attempts to modify the way the market distributes wealth using government are actually interfering with the way that things "ought" to be awarded "naturally". it's really the second part of the thing that doesn't wash with me, not the first. it's true that if you don't have rules that protect the weak from the strong then the strong will enslave the weak. i'm not sure how "natural" that is (market economies are no less planned, and are no less human constructions, it's just planned by and for an elite rather than the masses), nor am i one to fall into the naturalistic fallacy in the first place.

but it's not a rejection of the connection. it's this idea that markets determine value for work more fairly than government can, and that setting up those laws is giving workers more than they deserve for the contribution they make.

i want everybody to be able to make truly free economic decisions. however, for the exact issue of fast food workers, precisely? regarding the question as to how productive fast food workers actually are in a social sense? well...

....maybe what we need is a new economic paradigm that considers not just the amount of labour performed but also it's worth in a social sense. i know the guy was sort of dancing around that point, but he wasn't as extreme about it as i would be.

i'd actually rather see mcdonalds in bankruptcy and it's workforce on welfare.

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11510