Munchkin:
Today however truck driving is like driving a long car. Guys who would have been street sweepers, labourers or worked in other low skilled jobs that have disappeared now drive trucks. Easy life, anyone can drive, right? Obviously this is not conducive to a high wage occupation.
And there we have it again, the argument to which I referred. Truck driving is low skill, easy, the sort of thing done by street sweepers and labourers (implicitly, the sorts of people who, in this argument, deserve low pay, unlike we kings of the road, able to wrangle with 16 gears, could properly expect).
The street sweeper and labourer will return the favour. Look at that driver, sat in comfort, twiddling with gear sticks that almost any man can do with practice, not out in the elements every day sweeping the street, or ■■■■■■■ heavy things around a warehouse, or shovelling muck on a building site, real hard work.
It’s true that in the free market, an oversupply of workers will lead to low wages. If we train a million doctors, or split their jobs up into simpler roles, their pay will fall to that of the warehouseman. But this is why workers shouldn’t accept the free market mechanism.
Doctors certainly don’t - they have organisations like the BMA to lobby governments, set standards, limit numbers to ensure there is never an over-supply and thus a reserve of trained but unemployed doctors, maintain stability, and stop bosses gambling (as much as possible) with the quality and safety of medical services.
Workers used to have the Labour party to perform a similar function, but nowadays evidently they spend more time trying to do each other down and duke it out over who deserves more, whilst the bosses lean back in the big chair and set all their pay low.