US and THEM

I fear that our current economic system is no longer the fairestWhat type of system would most benefit me and, by inference, involve some consensus?

Was it ever the fairest?Are you talking about the national/internataional economic system now or are you thinking more about the pay structures specifically within your company and what your union should be pushing for? I still think a narrowing of the pay differentials for doing the same work is key to the original problem you laid out in the OP.But if you are now talking about a national/international economic system then that is quite a huge question.........

It is a hell of a lot better than it was, thanks mostly to unionization. Unions are the only true way that workers can protect themselves from the inherent greed of our economic system. Without unions we would still be working jobs where we are paid in chits that can only be spent at company stores (at highly inflated prices). Labor laws only came into being after bloody battles between unions and big business. Well regulated capitalism seems to work the best. Ideally, communism would work the best, but it breaks down in practice. Communism is all stick and no carrot.What we also need is an economy protected from other economies (i.e. cheap labor). I recently spoke to a vendor who was installing a new piece of equipment at my work. After my install he was flying to S. Korea to install some equipment over there. As it turns out, S. Korea has very strong protections against imports. The tariffs on the equipment about doubled the cost. The vendor told me that only the rich drove cars made outside of S. Korea due to these tariffs.What if the US had similar tariffs on imported goods? I think we would see a much better economy, but I could be wrong (economics is not my strong point).