Letter: Better wages for more workers is crucial for system

Tuesday, June 28, 2005 | 9:28 a.m.

Doesn't a big share of the population have to have enough income after expenses to buy products and services if they are to make the country prosper? If only 10 percent of the population is rich and the rest are poor, where are the customers coming from for products and wares of factories and small businesses?

From the 1940s into the 1970s, workers' unions were strong enough to offset the power of big industry in battles in the halls of Congress and keep wages high. As a result, the U.S. had a huge middle class that provided the world with a market that drove the world economy. Then U.S. capitalists began moving their factories to Asia and other places, practically neutering the labor unions. Today, couples struggle to keep up the middle-class front by earning two main incomes, taking extra jobs, depleting savings, spending their equity borrowing on credit cards and going deeper in debt.

You can argue that unions brought it on by becoming too greedy. But that doesn't solve the problem of worker income. Who looks greedy now, with capitalists going global with their investments and moving factories to cheap-labor countries? And giving themselves huge bonuses? And using their wealth to control politics and reduce taxes and regulations? And doing their banking offshore? And cheating investors?

There must be an structure for democracy, where capital, labor and consumers can all be on the same team.

PAUL GWIN