Malte Wingen

So here's the thing about labor. We should celebrate those who work hard to give us the life we've got. It doesn't take a lot of imagination, or a long course in history to see that imbalances in power can lead to a pretty gruelling life for those who would be employed.

And working people fought hard and they fought justly for what should have been their natural right to organize and negotiate for fair conditions and wages.

That said, they would not have had anything to fight for if it hadn't been for the visionaries who worked hard to organize labor into productive enterprises.

Before the industrial revolution, most people were living on less than a dollar a day, in today's money. In other words, they were scraping by, financially anyway.

My problem is that certain people seem to be more interested in grinding axes than finding the balance that carries us forward together.

I think most of us would agree that the person who takes the big risks to build something, and foregoes a steady paycheck, and risks losing it all, probably has a right to a little more reward when he wins.

There have been more than a thousand automobile companies. Fourteen major groups survive.

The people who create these companies probably deserve at least some of the rewards they are able to reap.

And we all win for the production of oil, and coal, and steel, and cars, and buildings, and roads, and computers.

But we only all win when we can maintain a balance. It's unsustainable to continue to promise to pay people when, with advancing life expectancies, their retirements can last as long as their working years.

At the same time, we sense it's unfair that C-suite salaries have grown at a much larger pace than those of the people who “do the work.” And we're sometimes burned up when raiders come in and restructure for profits at the risk of the health of a business and the jobs that it provide.

But there's the rub. The right investor can also unlock a lot of value and find and exploit strengths in a company that weren't seen before.

My point is that we accomplish nothing by sharpening our axes. But if we are not careful, this could be our end. At some point in time, the growth of inequality does cause people to pull out the pitchforks.

And we have the last century with its many tens of millions dead to show us that this might not be a good ending place.

So my wish and my blessing for this country (and the world) this labor day, is that we find a way to be partners in growth, that we realize there is more to be gained in our common enterprise and we build from there.