Technology vs The Working Man?

"The middle class is stuck in the middle, so to speak, with no way out!"

"Technology is eating the u.s. jobs alive any where it can."

If these statements were true, then one possible answer would seem obvious to me: Socialism. The entire logic of the free market revolves around the efficient use of resources, labor included. If labor ceased to be, in any sense, a scarce resource, then its efficient use would cease to be a major concern. The historical precedent used as an argument against the adoption of anything even hinting of Socialism in any way - that of the Eastern bloc countries (with the experience of Sweden conveniently ignored) - would not apply, because automation never approached the point of rendering the working man obsolete during the Soviet era.

The logic of Capitalism would break down, under these circumstances. To continue to cling to it would be unconscionable. But are these, indeed, really the circumstances? Are people pounding the pavement for years on end because there is no work to be done, or because the people refusing to hire are enjoying that little rush of power that they get from holding another human being down in inescapable misery?

I refer, not to anybody running a fortune 500 company, but to the nobodies working in Human Resources, answering to their employers in theory, but in practice being able to get away with murder.

Posted to: Is the real US unemployment rate 11.3% or 7.5%? A new Goldman Sachs study offers an answer