Occupied Media, by Noam Chomsky: on Jobs

Recession unemployment jobs won't come back

The change took place in the 1970s. There are a lot of reasons for it. One of the underlying factors was the falling rate of profit in manufacturing. It led to major changes in the economy--a reversal of the several hundred years of progress towards industrialization and development. Manufacturing production continued overseas--very profitable, but no good for the work force.

Along with that came a significant shift of the economy from productive enterprise--producing things people need or could use--to financial manipulation. The financialization of the economy really took off at that time.

Spread "industrial democracy" of worker-owned enterprises

In the longer term, there are many things that can be done. For example, in Ohio, there's a significant spread of worker-owned enterprises. A lot of this derived from a major effort, 30 years ago, when US Steel wanted to sell off one of its major installations. The work force and the community offered to buy it and run it themselves--industrial democracy, essentially. That went to the courts and they lost; although with sufficient support they could have won. But even the failure, like many failures, has spawned other efforts.