ABSTRACT
The demand for "labor" is a series of uses for different kinds of laborers, and it depends on what laborers and what capital facilities are in place, and how these pieces fit together. An economist's perspective, the single most important characteristic of labor is that it is not a homogenous commodity— just so many days of work— but is by contrast a cooperative endeavor of many different kinds of labor. Americans spend far more years in school than ever before, and many more years than any other people. Americans are industrious and optimistic in large part because of the freedom we have had to improve our wealth and station, but we are no longer leaders in mobility. They have the least upward mobility, according to the report cited above, and the highest rate of non-employment. The growing trade deficit— as worrisome as it is by itself— is sometimes invoked in a way that obscures the implications of these wage trends.
