“The People of Greece Are Fighting for the Whole of Europe”

"Karl Marx was disastrously wrong about a lot of things. But if the job market keeps growing as slowly as it has the past few months — even with April’s 290,000-job boost — the U.S. economy could soon find itself in a place he’d recognize.

"In Das Kapital, Marx described a problem he saw in the way capitalist societies function. As companies became more productive, learning to get more from their workers, they would need fewer and fewer of those workers. This would create an 'industrial reserve army' of unemployed people, whose desperation to work would keep the fire at the heels of those who had jobs and keep wages in check. As a result, all the added value created by workers would accrue to the owners of the companies."

Mark Whitehouse
Wall Street Journal
Number of the Week: 29.4 Million in ‘Industrial Reserve Army’