This paper still dances around the real issue. Why has worker power decreased? Yes, we can say that capital owners capitalised on the fact that workers were wi

This paper still dances around the real issue. Why has worker power decreased? Yes, we can say that capital owners capitalised on the fact that workers were willing to give up more. But why were they? Unions can explain some of it, but why did Unions go away? Why is it, when two workers sit in two rooms with two managers, one of them is willing to take less than the other? Consumer credit is why. Because of consumer credit, the person who is able to and willing to overextend their financial position "wins", which is an awful race to the bottom. The essential purpose of work is to provide a lifestyle. If you cannot achieve the lifestyle you want with your job, you will demand more money. Why work at all if you're just scraping by, and not able to enjoy any of life? But, wait, here's a credit card. Now you can have that lifestyle you want, and you don't really _need_ to demand more from your employer. Or maybe you do, but you know the next guy has one too, and you know that he'll take less because he can, and maybe he's less financially intelligent than you are. So you feel like you have less bargaining power at the table. Would unions help with this? Maybe. But lifestyle is what drives us at our core. If greed is a core component of demand, then we need to make it so that we can't quench greed with false financial mechanisms.