So, as you may know, I’ve started reading Newsweek’s 50 Books for Our Times (#50bx4rx) and Nicholas Carr’s The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google
I learned that, (as Carr sees it, at least) the rise of the middle class came in large part from Henry Ford’s invention of the assembly line. Work on the line for human laborers – fleshy cogs in a metal machine– was so tedious that Ford had to pay a premium to lure workers into the factories. Ironically, people were paid more to do less complex work (I think of it as a boredom tax); other manufacturers were forced to pay premiums to keep up with Ford, and so you had low skill jobs for people with less education paying higher wages. More money to the masses and the middle class is born! Fascinating.
~benc
