Webb On Wages

I like Jim Webb, even if the Kossaks do too, and while he ran a worse campaign than he should have, he ran a good enough one to win.

I'm happy that he's started his Senatorial career with a shot across the bow in the WSJ on the increasing ossification of American society:

America's elites need to understand this reality in terms of their own self-interest. A recent survey in the Economist warned that globalization was affecting the U.S. differently than other "First World" nations, and that white-collar jobs were in as much danger as the blue-collar positions which have thus far been ravaged by outsourcing and illegal immigration. That survey then warned that "unless a solution is found to sluggish real wages and rising inequality, there is a serious risk of a protectionist backlash" in America that would take us away from what they view to be the "biggest economic stimulus in world history."

More troubling is this: If it remains unchecked, this bifurcation of opportunities and advantages along class lines has the potential to bring a period of political unrest. Up to now, most American workers have simply been worried about their job prospects. Once they understand that there are (and were) clear alternatives to the policies that have dislocated careers and altered futures, they will demand more accountability from the leaders who have failed to protect their interests. The "Wal-Marting" of cheap consumer products brought in from places like China, and the easy money from low-interest home mortgage refinancing, have softened the blows in recent years. But the balance point is tipping in both cases, away from the consumer and away from our national interest.

The good news is that he gets that there's a problem. It's a problem that I've written about more than a few times, and see as one of the two or three biggest ones we face today...behind Islamism, in case you're wondering.

The bad news is that he's walking close to the line of economic nationalism - and when I think too far down that path, I can't decide if I want to point him at Smoot-Hawley or King Canute. S'not gonna work.

But there are things we can and should do, in tax policy and corporate governance policy to temper the advantages for the managerial class (and the investor class) in wage-shifting. But I need to finish my Iraq post first...