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Wilmington, North Carolina once had a thriving Black middle class and an elected interracial government. In 1898 white supremacists used violence to overthrow that government, kill Black residents and drive many others from the city.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
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In economics, the wage share or labor share is the part of national income, or the income of a particular economic sector, allocated to wages (labor). It is related to the capital or profit share, the part of income going to capital,[1] which is also known as the K–Y ratio.[2] The labor share is a key indicator for the distribution of income.[3]
The wage share can be defined in various ways, but empirically it is usually defined as total labor compensation or labor costs over nominal GDP or gross value added.[3]
Often the capital share and labor share are assumed to sum to 100%, so that each can be deduced from the other. For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics defines the labor share in a given sector (LS) as the ratio of labor compensation paid in that sector (C) to current dollar output (CU), i.e. LS = C / CU. The non-labor or capital share (NLS) is defined as 1 − LS.[4]
For the U.S. nonfarm business sector, BLS estimated that labor's share of output was 52.8 percent in the second quarter of 2026, the lowest reading in the series beginning in the first quarter of 1947. The quarterly estimate was published with revised productivity and cost data.[5]
In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Piketty described the accounting identity α = r × β as the 'first fundamental law of capitalism', where α represents the capital share, r is the rate of return on capital, and β is the capital to income ratio.[6] Piketty defined the wage share as 1 − α.[7]
Because the self-employed perform labor which is not rewarded with wages, the labor share may be underestimated in sectors with a high rate of self-employment. One approach is to assume the labor share of proprietors' income to be fixed.[8] The OECD and the Bureau of Labor Statistics adjust labor compensation by assuming that the self-employed have the same average wage as employees in the same sector.[3]: 2
The importance of the distribution of income between the factors of production – capital, land and labor – has long been recognized. Ricardo (1817) said that to determine the laws which regulate this distribution is the "principal problem in political economy".[9]
Cobb and Douglas's Theory of Production (1928) introduced empirically determined constants α and β which corresponded to the capital and labor share respectively. Cobb and Douglas found that the wage share was about 75% in 1928.[10]: 163 For most of the 20th century, constant labor share was a stylized fact[3]: 14 known as Bowley's law.
Historical measurements of the wage share can be charted using the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis's FRED tool, which includes time series published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics[11] and Bureau of Economic Analysis.[12]
The wage share is countercyclical;[3]: 13 that is, it tends to fall when output increases and rise when output decreases. Despite fluctuating over the business cycle, the wage share was once thought to be stable, which Keynes described as "one of the most surprising, yet best-established facts in the whole range of economic statistics".[13] The wage share has declined in most developed countries since the 1980s.[14][15]
Market concentration tends to reduce the labor share.[16]
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Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
In economics, the wage share or labor share is the part of national income, or the income of a particular economic sector, allocated to wages (labor). It is related to the capital or profit share, the part of income going to capital, which is also known as the K–Y ratio. The labor share is a key indicator for the distribution of income.
In Marxist theory and Marxian economics, the immiseration thesis, also referred to as emiseration thesis, is derived from Karl Marx's analysis of economic development in capitalism, implying that the nature of capitalist production stabilizes real wages, reducing wage growth relative to total value creation in the economy. Even if real wages rise, therefore, the overall labor share of income decreases, leading to the increasing power of capital in society. The immiseration thesis is related to Marx's analysis of the rising organic composition of capital and reduced demand for labor relative to capital equipment as technology develops. The law of increasing misery (also known as the immiseration thesis) is a concept central to Marxist theory, suggesting that capitalism inherently leads to a decline in the standard of living for the working class, even if wages may technically rise, while simultaneously enriching the capitalist class. This theory posits that the nature of capitalist production, characterized by the increasing exploitation of labor, will ultimately result in a greater concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a smaller, capitalist elite, leaving the working class increasingly impoverished.
The Australian Labor Party (ALP) is the major social democratic political party in Australia. Sitting on the centre-left of the political spectrum, it is the oldest active party in the country, having been founded in 1891. It is one of the two major parties in Australian politics, its main rival being the Liberal–National Coalition. It has been the ruling party at the federal level since the 2022 federal election, and currently forms government in five of the eight states and territories. The Labor Party was founded in 1891, being descended from the labour parties founded in the various Australian colonies during the emerging labour movement. After its founding, it began contesting colonial elections, and federal elections after Australian federation, beginning with the 1901 federal election. In 1904, it briefly formed what is considered the world's first labour party government and the world's first social democratic or democratic socialist government at a national level, the Watson government. At the 1910 federal election, Labor became the first party in Australia to win a majority in either house of the Australian parliament. In every election since 1910, Labor has either served as the governing party or the opposition. The Labor Party is often called the party of unions due to its close ties to the labour movement in Australia and historical founding by trade unions, with the majority of Australian trade unions being affiliated with the Labor Party. The party's structure allocates 50% of delegate representation at state and national conferences to affiliated unions, with the remaining 50% to rank-and-file party members. At the federal and state/colony level, the Australian Labor Party predates both the British and New Zealand Labour parties in formation and winning government. Internationally, the ALP is a member of the Progressive Alliance, a network of progressive, democratic socialist and social democratic parties, having previously been a member of the Socialist International.
The Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy (French: La Part maudite) is a 1949 book about political economy by the French intellectual Georges Bataille, in which the author presents a new economic theory which he calls "general economy". The work comprises Volume I: Consumption, Volume II: The History of Eroticism, and Volume III: Sovereignty. It was first published in France by Les Éditions de Minuit, and in the United States by Zone Books. It is considered one of the most important of Bataille's books.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Mae Jemison, aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1992.
