My observation is every technological/economic/societal change has hurt the middle class and redistributed income to the capital owners and overseas. For example, the so-called Robber Barons created industries that employed millions while a firm like Google I believe employs directly something on the order of 10,000 workers.
What does Apple have- about 50,000 Chinese slaves!
What has hurt the middle class is the entitlement class that the government has created.
“My observation is every technological/economic/societal change has hurt the middle class”
So back to the days when we were serfs working on the nobleman’s lands for a pittance! Technological improvement is the only reason we have a middle class.
One sobering aspect of this that doesn't get any mention simply because nobody wants to hear it is this: America's middle class may be disappearing simply because there's no place in natural law and in human existence for what we know as a "middle class."
The cost of capital versus labor has shifted significantly in favor of capital over the last few decades. And in many cases, automation is the only way many modern products can be manufactured.
One example ... in the 1950’s electronics assembly involved large factories with hundreds of assemblers (mostly women) with soldering irons. A modern 2014 electronics assembly plant will have a half dozen employees and rows of machines - pick-and-place machines to mount parts on printed circuit boards, reflow soldering machines for soldering and then automated test and inspection stations.
One recent interview with the president of a smallish automated assembly house said the production he achieved with 6 employees would have required 600 employees with hand assembly. But hand assembly of small surface mount components is extremely difficult and can only be accomplished practically with machinery.
The rise of automation and robots pushes jobs into two categories. One being a relatively few but high paying jobs for the machine designers and second being jobs that are not susceptible to automation, such as building maintenance or landscaping.
The west went through the transition from 90% of the workforce being employed in agriculture to 5% agriculture over nearly a century. I suspect the switch from medium skilled jobs to a bimodal few high skilled workers and lots of low skilled jobs and not so many in the middle is not going to be as smooth a transition.
without tariff barriers to goods coming from wage-slave countries, there is nothing to slow down the migration of those jobs to the cheaper labor.
the increase in unions and minimum wage just accelerates it