@benlockwood it always seems to start at Reagan doesn't it
@TheZeldaZone @benlockwood It was 100% Reagan's fault. Also he courted the evangelicals who pitched their concept of a plan to politicize fringe issues: Christianity as politics and abortion, guns.

@AxeAkane Literally impossible, according to this chart. Reagan's first term didn't start until 1981, but union membership starts declining in the mid-'60s, and the decoupling of wages from productivity starts about a decade before Reagan.

The Reaganites massively accelerated all this and did much more damage, but they didn't start it. I'd really like to know the full story, especially what happened in the early '70s -- exactly what, when, who, and why.

@wesdym
It seems that after 1977, the DOJ stopped bringing cases against businesses under section 2 of the Sherman Act, so even my go-to blame seems not to explain it, as it doesn't go back far enough...
@AxeAkane

@chocobo13 Someone else brought up the so-called "Nixon Shock", which would both help explain this and is almost exactly timed right. So I think that's it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_shock

Nixon shock - Wikipedia

@AxeAkane @TheZeldaZone @benlockwood

You can also pinpoint Reagan as the time the Democratic party too a hard Right turn

@TheZeldaZone No, Reagan didn't start his first term until 1981. The decoupling of wages from productivity started in the early '70s, though I don't know EXACTLY when, or exactly how and why it started.

And I'd really, really like to know.