The logical mistake here by Chris and most neoliberals is that the worker will get to share in the upside. But that’s not generally the case. Indeed, the labor share has been falling over time, as wage growth has become divorced from productivity growth.

Since the libs are already mad at me, I’ll poke the bear and say the anti-public-sector-union takes amount to effectively wishing for an end to the American labor movement—that’s just the reality when private sector unionization is ~6%. I’m sure I’ll get some “yes” chad face replies and quotes, but be careful what you wish for; liberal democracy under capitalism but without unions has often been pretty politically unstable! People want a democratic say in their economic life; unions offer this. Without unions, allegiance to liberal democracy itself declines, because people feel (reasonably) without resource to have a say in where they spend a third of their lives—at work. If you’re frustrated with the policy demands of some public sector unions, find compromises. Offer them something else in exchange! Do a little horse trading. Better yet, reform and expand American labor law through things like sectoral bargaining so unions aren’t so often in zero-sum situations where they feel obligated to cling to existing jobs for existing members, because they don’t have a strong path to organizing new workplaces and finding good new union jobs for workers that would be displaced by, say, automating trains.

A 91% tax rate on high income brackets is a pigouvian tax on inequality. It’s meant to discourage plutocracy the way a carbon tax discourages CO2 emissions. That few people actually paid that rate was a feature, not a bug.

It has become fashionable to talk about the rise of technofeudalism. But an Uber driver is not a peasant legally tied to a lord, but simply an insecure worker forced into an unbalanced commercial contract with an exploitative boss.