> I'd like to live in a world where a virtuous feedback loop would lead to companies treating their employees better and better, but history says that's not the

> I'd like to live in a world where a virtuous feedback loop would lead to companies treating their employees better and better, but history says that's not the world we live in. The world we live in has historically treated workers better and better, with some ups and downs, mostly for economic reasons. The primary factor that determines worker welfare is the price of labor. If labor is cheap due to low demand and lots of people compete for jobs, they will accept being mistreated. If labor is expensive due to high demand and fewer people competing for jobs, they will not accept being mistreated. They will move on to greener pastures. This is different across industries, of course. The plight is upon those who have little to offer to the demands of the economy. If nobody wants to eat honey anymore, having bees work for free wouldn't save the company. What we also have learned from history, but tend to forget, is that price fixing doesn't solve the problem. > We live in a world where executive pay is going stratospheric while employee benefits are stagnant. This is numerically irrelevant, because there are very few such executives. Cutting into their compensation to pay the many lower-tier workers a tiny bit more would make no difference.