This has always been a subject very interresting to myself, as an ecconomics student. We are moving to a service industry, but those services will soon only be direct sales to each other, or supporting those direct sales. With the fall of communism and the other socialist nations of Europe unable to expand their industries, we are at the point where many nations have realized that capitalism is indeed the best system for ecconomic governance. This is cuppled with the increasing demands on wallstreet to make more profits even at the expense of their business name. It used to be that companies would become a part of the community and at that time it served their interrests (people from the community would buy their products simply because it was in the community). No longer does it serve their interrests to do so, public companies only see themselves accountable to their shareholders (and only to the degree where it increases the perks the board and governers of the company now expect). The second part is the wallmart of america, Wallmart tossed out the old notions of brand leader, price leader, and quality leader, and showed that being the price leader was king in retail.
We are also at the point where many are now retiring and are taking themselves out of the labor market to live off what they've made their entire life. With fixed incomes and all the time in the world at their disposal they now spend that time looking for the best "deals". With the job market weak and the threat of outsourcing around the corner companies can afford to skimp on the payments of their workers and they do this to meet the demands placed on them, price, price, and price.
As we see more people retire the pricing demand will become stronger as more people have the time to look for the best bargins.
In effect we can look forward to lower incomes and (likely) higher taxes to support those who have retired, in effect possibly reducing our own chances to retire.