Is It Possible to Substitute Capital for Labor in a Nursing Home?

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In post industrial societies, policy makers must choose two of three desirable outcomes. This choice emerges from the low productivity and non tradable characteristics of service work. To achieve low unemployment, wages must be driven down for the private sector to create jobs. The public sector can absorb the service economy in asing wages, but inflating public deficits.

Historian Gabriel Winant discusses The Next Shift: The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America. It's a fascinating study of the emergence of the service sector and a new working class out of the wreckage of deindustrialization through the story of the rise and fall of unionized steel in Pittsburgh and its replacement by a massive hospital industry. Listen to my past interview with Winant on the social worlds that make US politics and how that sociality is rooted in the economy, carceral state, social media, religion, and more thedigradio.com/podcast/the-social-question-with-gabriel-winant Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out The After-Normal: Brief, Alphabetical Essays on a Changing Planet, by David Carlin and Nicole Walker rosemetalpress.com/books/the-after-normal