Comment by AnthonyMouse

> Since the late 70s, policy changes and the modern management movement have caused worker pay to drop in real terms.

This isn't well established as the cause and there is reason to expect that it isn't. To start with, the Housing Theory of Everything fits better.

If this was about management practices then in competitive markets things would still be fine, you would only need one company to not do that and everybody would buy from them. But things still kind of suck even there, so what's that about? Housing costs would explain it. People spend more money on rent so they have less money to spend on other things, meanwhile companies have to pay higher rents too, so their customers have less money and simultaneously their business has higher costs. Somehow they have to lower prices while covering higher costs and the somehow is by enshitifying their products, i.e. that is the symptom rather than the cause.

But the Housing Theory of Everything is slightly off, because the real problem is a generalization of the theory. Housing is expensive because supply is artificially constrained, and it's artificial supply constraints -- insufficiently competitive markets -- that are the general underlying cause. Housing is a major example of this, probably the largest and most important, both because it's such a large proportion of personal expenses and because the restrictive zoning that imposes the constraint is so widespread.

But it's the same problem when you need a medical imaging scan and there are Certificate of Need laws that expressly prohibit new competitors from providing the service when the incumbents are charging inflated prices, and then those high costs get incorporated into health insurance premiums and Medicare taxes and reduce real wages by increasing the cost of living.

Regulatory capture has to be undone or it will be our undoing.